Before the creation of national parks should be approached rationally and scientific justification,-Christine Yushkevych

The percentage of protected forests in Ukraine is 16%. This was reported by T. V. Head of the state agency of Forest Resources Christina Yushkevych in an interview gazeta.ua.

In this case, Christine Yushkevych noted that even in countries such as Finland and Sweden, where forests are the main natural type of vegetation, the protected area takes only 11% and 6.3% of the entire area.

Moreover, it is now considered a question until 2020 to expand the Natural reserve fund up to 15% of the total territory of the country.

I am for the creation of national parks. However, it is necessary to approach this issue rationally. Understand that only wealthy countries can afford such a number of preserves. You need not formally, but really approach this situation,-said Christina Yushkevych.

She also recalled the situation about the project creation of the National Natural Park “Dniprovsko-Theterevsky”. There environmentalists require a reserve of more than 30 thousand. hectares of land. This is a very large territory, the construction and maintenance of which will require tens of millions of hryvnias. But now the State cannot assume such financial responsibility, says Christina Yushkevych.

Besides, according to the conclusions of scientists of the authoritative and well-known in Europe of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Forestry and Agroreclamation named after Vysotsky, in this forest it was not a long-standing forestry work. Scientists from the National University of Life and Nature, national Forestry University, have their consultations.

The fact that access to this territory has been banned for many years – there were hunting grounds of Yanukovych. As this land no one has been worried long enough, now this forest is not in a better position: there is a dry, bog, which dried up, due to the infringement of hydrological balance. In addition, there is a high level of radiation on a large area, since it is in close proximity to the Chornobyl NPP. Therefore, to create a park there, the territory must first be cleaned. And this requires a huge means that the state today can not allocate.

I am sure that similar conclusions we will get from experts to other, which also want to allocate under the reserves. That is why we need a comprehensive, system program for scientific justification. The only way we can reform the forestry of Ukraine and stop the illegal deforestation. We develop a tactical and strategic plan to conduct reforms. And in the near future we will all see a drastic changes in the forest industry»,-summed up T. о. Chairman of the state Agency for Forest resources.

Press-Service of State forestry