Ostap Semerak, a minister of ecology told us about the biggest achievements and defeats of the environmental policy of the last year. Thus, having opened the traditional cycle of public reports of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. What did the minister say and what didn’t he say? What is written between the lines of his report? What do the experts and the public think about this?
How the court canceled Pythagoras
Recently, almost all Ukrainian mass media wrote that the Kyiv Regional Administrative Court allowed hunting moose. In fact, the Minister of Ecology explains, it’s not true. Indeed, the court decided to abolish the order of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine on the putting of the European moose into the Red Data Book of Ukraine. But, firstly, this decision has not yet come into force. Secondly, the ministry has prepared and filed an appeal on December 13, which it hopes to win. “It is necessary to treat the court judgments with respect”, Semerak said, “but I do not understand why the court is going to evaluate the conclusions of the scientists (the decision to put a moose into the Red Data Book was made by a commission consisted mainly of academicians and doctors of sciences – O. L.) instead of procedural moments. According to this logic, tomorrow the court will decide whether the Earth is globular or flat. And we will be very surprised and will fall beyond the horizon on the tusks of the elephants that are standing on the turtle”.
So, the battle for the moose continues. And already in 2019, we will see both the effectiveness of the appeal and the results of the record of moose, which this winter will be held with the support of the Frankfurt Zoological Society. We will also learn about the fate of the recently submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers draft law in which the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources proposes to prohibit the use of wild animals in circuses. The draft law has already been agreed in the Ministry of Culture. “I believe in humanitarian changes in Ukraine and that the parliament will support us. In Europe, ten countries have imposed a total ban, another ten – significantly limited the use of animals on the arena”, Ostap Semerak said.
I also want to believe that, but most of the deputies are not too concerned with the protection of our little friends. Here is an example. Despite more than a year of a powerful public campaign, dozens of pickets of eco-activists, active work of the specialized committee of the Verkhovna Rada, public support by well-known Ukrainians and the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, the parliament has not voted for the zoo-protection bill №6598. Which, in particular, would prohibit the use of animals by street (or beach) photographers, did not allow the torture of animals at the so-called “test” stations (where hunting dogs are trained to hunt bears, wolves, foxes that are either deliberately crippled or tied etc.).
If you want to breathe – come to the hearing
Presidential (already in March) and then parliamentary (next autumn) elections will distract the deputies from work on laws on humane attitude towards animals. It is good that the law on Environmental Assessment (EA) went through parliamentary quests long before the election fever. Recently, the document turned one year. Now officials refer to it when they answer the question “How to deal with emissions and other consequences of economic activity of industrial, agrarian and other enterprises?”. The success of the implementation of this law is attributed to the victories of 2018 by the Minister of ecology. Indeed, the developed methods, open electronic registry, where over 1700 cases have already been registered, work. For comparison: a similar registry in Poland has the same number of records.
The law on EA restored the right of citizens to participate in the discussion of projects that may affect the quality of the environment – the construction or reconstruction of factories, power plants, livestock complexes, large-scale logging, etc. that was taken in 2011 by the team of Yanukovych-Azarov. The main thing is that people do not sleep, but take an active part in hearings and other forms of discussion. We have more than 250 conclusions and recommendations of hearings. “This law has definitely strengthened the influence of citizens on decision-making that affects the interests of their community and the environment”, said Pavlo Vyshebaba, co-founder of the “One Planet” public organization. A good example: a ban on increasing the capacity of a fur farm in Sinhury, Zhytomyr oblast – the community voted against and the decision was frozen”. But there are some opposite thoughts. In Kryvyi Rih activists are dissatisfied with the results of hearings on the development of local enterprises, in particular – mining and concentrating company.
It is worth noting that the effectiveness of the hearings depends, in particular, on the professionalism, knowledge, insistence of the participants. And the law applies only to new objects and the reconstruction of existing ones. That is, it is not an instrument of influence on those enterprises that already work without planning any changes, and year after year they sew wastes into the water or throw away toxic substances into the air. For such enterprises, there are other laws and the State Ecological Inspectorate, which imposes penalties for irregularities. And in the case of permitted (they are forced to allow because to close a plant, a power plant, mine is not that simple) exceeding of the allowable level of emissions it calculates losses. Inspection is done by a special method. Figures show that a method is a powerful tool. During 2016-2017 and 9 months of 2018, 2335 claims totaling over 1.25 billion UAH were presented and more than 90% of them were collected. Unfortunately, new charges will not be available in the last months of this year, nor in all months of the next year. The court abolished the order of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, by which this method was affirmed. The consequences will be horrible.
The question is not only in the huge hole in the approved State Budget for 2019. A tool that prompted the owners of the enterprises to install waste treatment plants and to update the technology was invalidated. Even before the final press conference, the minister reacted very emotionally to the decision of the court: “This means that now the chemical plants, thermal power stations and cogeneration stations, which bring the largest amount of emissions, had a dominant position. Moreover, now they are not interested in reducing emissions (read – enterprises’ upgrading). They are not even afraid of the planned checks of the State Ecological Inspectorate, because the mechanisms of punishment no longer exist. I consider that such court decisions are ‘the triumph of justice’!”.
Although the court decision has not yet been made publicly and it is not known who exactly filed the suit and reached its satisfaction, Ostap Semerak sent a subtle hint where to look for these surnames, “It is not difficult to guess who encouraged the court to make a decision, not in favor of Ukrainians and the environment. These people are owners of enterprises from the TOP-100 pollutants, whose rating was published by the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources on the basis of the results of the year. These are the same people who saved millions by one court decision. They are the same people whose parliamentary lobby blocks, for example, increasing fines for environmental damage”.
We will know who will come to dig
The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources has to deal with the very complicated people regulating the sphere of subsoil use. The Minister has repeatedly stated that the Public Service of geology and subsoil of Ukraine needs radical reforms. But despite the fact that the State geology and subsoils are “registered” under the umbrella of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, the leaders of this agency for a long time ignored the wishes and demands of the ministry. Then the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources managed to act asymmetrically. In its introduction, the Government has upheld a decision on putting permissions for use of subsoil for sale through the ProZorro system. They will offer from 5 to 10 lots monthly and they will deal not only with oil and gas. The Government also supported the developed by The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources’s new order of disposal of geological information, which provides for the full digitization of all available data and the creation of a single public directory of information about them. “This is to ensure that investors and those who work in this area no longer complain about the scattering and disorder of geological data, as well as the lack of access to it”, said Ostap Semerak. Some other innovations are also planned. How it will work, we’ll see soon.
The public welcomes the following steps. But at the same time, it is indignant with certain situations. For example, events around the scandalous Yuzivska gas field. In particular, activists from “Ecology – Law – Man” (ELM) emphasize that the fresh decision of the Government to transfer 90% of the rights and responsibilities of “Nadra Yuzivska” Ltd. in the agreement on product distribution of the Yuzivska gas field (Kharkiv and Donetsk region) for Yuzgas B.V. (The Netherlands) was adopted “without taking into account environmental considerations and public opinion”. The adviser of the Minister, Oksana Shcherbak, in response, said that the decision of the government was adopted despite the comments of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, which were provided at the stage of its agreement. She also reminds that such planned activities as mining and drilling of wells are subjected to the law on EA (see above), so the procedures for assessing the impact will not go away in the future.
In any case, it is necessary to closely monitor the progression of events, because here almost 1,5% of the entire territory of Ukraine is given for geological study and industrial development, the stock of gas there is estimated at 4 trillion cubic meters.
About the exclusion zone, national parks and forests
The Minister of Ecology is proud that the exclusion zone is becoming safer. In particular, thanks to the completion of the construction and installation of the Arch over the destroyed reactor and the construction of storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel. And the communications and networks of the closed Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant are about to begin to be used by investors who have been given the opportunity to build solar and wind power plants there.
Although specialists in energetics are not enthusiastic about the construction of new “alternative” capacities there. Because if the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow, it is necessary to include some other sources of electricity production. Often, Pumped-storage hydroelectricity (PSH) are offered as “compensatory powers”. They are criticized by environmentalists, they call such stations “murderers of rivers”. Is it possible to get out of this enchanted circle – the issue is not easy and requires a separate story-investigation.
In the case of the expansion and development of protected areas intrigues are smaller, but they still exist. The unconditional success of the joint work of eco-activists, scholars, local authorities and The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources is the preparation of nine draft presidential decrees. They provide for the creation or increase of reserves, national parks, etc.
“The intrigue is that this titanic work will receive final approval when the Guarantor will sign these decrees. For all years of being in his office, the current head of state was not too concerned about the protection of particularly valuable nature. He signed decrees on the creation of only two natural areas of the strongest types – one reserve (the Chornobyl Biosphere) and one national park (Nizhniodniprovskyi)”, says Borys Vasylkivskyi, a chairman of “EcoPravo-Kyiv”.
Truly, the merits of the president include the signing of the Law on forests. But this wonderful law, which should have been in action for over a year, is in poor shape. Because the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food and the State Agency of Forestry did not develop, and the Cabinet did not adopt amendments to the by-laws – Sanitary rules in forests of Ukraine and the Rules for improving the quality of forests. Therefore, eco-activists and people’s deputies filed a lawsuit with the Cabinet in order to comply with the requirements of the “forest law” (DUMKA wrote in detail about intrigues around these most valuable forests in the material “Will there be the Bald Mountains instead of the Carpathians?”). The trial is scheduled for mid-January, so soon we will see whom Ukrainian Themis will support this time.
It is also interesting how hearings on defending territories and property of the Hutsulshchyna National Park will end, which will also take place in 2019. The very story of the park and St. Nicholas, whose Estate is located in the “Hutsulshchyna”, is also described in details in DUMKA.
To be continued?
Among the remarkable eco-events of the passing year there is innovation in management (through basin councils) and protection (new monitoring system) of rivers; lifting the moratorium on environmental inspections; discussion of the draft framework law on waste management and nine related draft laws, and much more. Each position is worthy of attention and detailed analysis – because it all affects and will affect our lives and health.
Text by Oleksa Lystopad
