Environmental activists criticize inaction of Yushchenko administration (06/26/05)

Environmental activists criticize inaction of Yushchenko administration

by Vladyslav Pavlov
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - In the first 150 days of Viktor Yushchenko's presidency, a pro-environmental political policy is virtually non-existent, the director of the Kyiv Ecological-Cultural Center, Volodymyr Boreiko, said at a June 15 press conference.

So far, President Yushchenko has failed to fulfill campaign promises to repossess park lands and forest preserves stolen and distributed by oligarchs, to significantly curtail hunting and exclusive safaris, and to rid the Ministry of the Environment of corrupt officials, Mr. Boreiko said.

"Of all these things, nothing has been done, with the exception of returning the lands of the Yalta mountain-forest preserve," said Mr. Boreiko, referring to the 865 acres of land in Crimea that former president Leonid Kuchma took possession of and distributed to his colleagues.

In addition to the Yalta preserve, Mr. Yushchenko promised to return land in the Donetsk Botanical Garden, which faces a deeper crisis, and the Nikitsk Botanical Garden, which is in Crimea.

Government officials distributed into private hands more than 363 acres of valuable land at the Donetsk Botanical Garden, Mr. Boreiko said.

Donetsk's lead prosecutor is currently investigating the schemes by which the lands were distributed, according to a news report aired on Novyi Kanal television.

On the botanical garden's arboretum grounds, more than 1,200 types of plants were grown, Novyi Kanal reported. The prosecutor is also investigating the selling off of some of these scientific specimens.

A private company calling itself Donetsk Ecological Investment Project somehow became owner of these lands, Novyi Kanal reported, and did not care for the plant specimens.

Apparently, even National Academy of Sciences President Boris Paton allowed for the sale of the land. Botanical gardens throughout Ukraine fall under the academy's purview.

One culprit that environmentalists can point to is Donetsk oligarch Rynat Akhmetov, who illegally built a 148-acre helipad and hangar for two helicopters and three planes on the botanical garden grounds, Mr. Boreiko said.

"Four men built their dachas on 10 acres right in the Nikitsk Botanical Garden," Mr. Boreiko said. "And the name of one of them - Sviatoslav Piskun! The guilty are not punished, and the land is not returned."

Another nature preserve under threat is the Danube Biosphere, which surrounds the Danube-Black Deepwater Naval Sea Canal that authorities have already begun to expand.

Builders have said the canal's enlargement will have no environmental consequences, a view with which ecologists sharply disagreed.

On June 8 the Minister of the Environment Pavlo Ihnatenko signed an order halting construction on the canal until an official decision is made to resolve the conflict.

Ecologists are also disturbed by plans to replace the astronomical observatory at Shevchenko University of Kyiv with private residential buildings.

"The observatory's grounds, which are more than 160 years old, include a green zone that is full of rare flora and fauna of the capital, some of which are endangered," said Ivan Parnikoza, a member of the student activist group Green Future who also was present at the press conference.

University Rector Vitalii Skopenko has already decided to build a residential building with an underground garage at the observatory site, Mr. Parnikoza said.

The press conference participants wrote a letter to President Yushchenko asking that he set aside more time to address ecological problems and to fulfill his responsibilities.

"Undecisive and often contradictory actions of Viktor Yushchenko in the sphere of ecological politics and the unfullfilment of his promises to voters are beginning to disappoint many Ukrainian ecological organizations that supported Mr. Yushchenko during the elections," the ecologists wrote.

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