The EU and the Deforestation of Ukraine

by Dmytryi Kovalevich

Since 2014 we have in Ukraine a mass deforestation. The entire forests and parks are being eliminated, causing local environmental disasters. However, until now the logging has been mostly illegal. But now the EU is demanding from Ukraine to lift the ban on exporting timber/wood as a condition of obtaining the next EU macrofinancial aid (1.2 billion euro), reminding Kiev that this is a term of the Euroassociation agreement, – reports Ukrainian Minister of economic development and trade.
Currently, even the polluted radioactive forests of the Chernobyl zone are being cut: “But logging in a post-apocalyptic forest would pose a number of health concerns. Trees, like moss, absorb radiation from the subsoil. Also, clear-cutting churns up soil, stirring radioactive dust and accelerating erosion,” reports New York Times.
Not to mention the Carpathians, which have turned into ‘devastated lands’ in the two years since Maidan.   “The total devastation of protected forests in the Carpathians has been underway in recent years,” notes Censor Net, providing photographic evidence of the environmental destruction that’s taking place.

As even the Unian reports: “There is a struggle for the checkpoint Tisa [west border], where there is a major flow of smuggled goods. Through this checkpoint the expensive timber is exported from Ukraine, which is illegally logged in the national parks across the Carpathians.”  Meanwhile, despite an official ban on exporting timber, dozens of trains with illegally logged wood daily cross Ukrainian west border – going to the EU.

So, the EU demand to lift the ban on exporting timber is just a demand to legalize the practice of grabbing natural resources.

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