On February 23, 2022, our office stayed open quite late – that day we met with our volunteers to talk about nuclear energy and outline the first steps in our future project. We aspired to fulfil the dream we had during the years of pandemic and go back to offline activities. For the next several months, not only this group, but also the entire Ecoaction team, did not have the opportunity to meet in person. In a matter of days, we found ourselves scattered all over Ukraine: from Cherkasy and Poltava to Lviv, Ternopil and Volyn. Some people ended up in Poland, Czech Republic or Slovenia.
This year scarred every Ukrainian person, family and community. And, in the same way, it overturned and changed Ecoaction. Many people left the team and even more new ones joined as the team grew. Some colleagues went to defend the country and we are waiting for them to return victorious. Lots of our projects seemed to become meaningless, but in the end, we rebuilt our determination and our faith in the importance of what we are doing. After a year of the full-scale russian war in Ukraine, lets recall what we`ve been doing and what we`ve learnt from it.
Many things have lost their meaning in a second
In the first weeks, like many, Ecoaction employees revaluated what was important. For many, everything except for survival and helping our army suddenly lost its meaning and one of our main values – environmental protection – fell out of view. But, even that Thursday, February 24, the work did not stop. While evacuating or hiding in bomb shelters, checking with family and close ones, some managed to speak with journalists about what is happening here, or to keep their working routine going.
On February 24, we posted a message urging people to keep calm and read only reliable news sources and since then we never stopped communicating with our followers. Right after that our inner search began. Our people started to look for ways to be helpful for our country – both as individuals and as a team.
We’d spent almost the whole 2021 preparing an online course on sustainable agricultural practices and planned to release it by the end of February 2022. But by the end of month, it seemed to be useless. We couldn’t imagine that anyone would care about sustainability of their farms while they were loosing their lands to occupation, shellings or pollution and often had to risk their lives while working on those lands. Later we realized that those practices might be useful not just for protecting the environment but for growing healthy crops even in this new reality. Eventually we managed to adjust the course to wartime challenges and released it in the beginning of summer.
On the other hand, there were also projects that we couldn’t manage to finish. We planned to explore the impacts of air pollution on the health of women and men and were ready to launch research. But after February 24 it is almost impossible to make it relevant. Full-scale war has most probably changed the air quality dramatically but the newest data on the pollutants in the air is unobtainable. Nevertheless, we keep working on the issue and focus on air quality plans.
On February 25, people in our energy department started thinking about connection of Ukraine’s energy system to the European network of electricity transmission system operators ENTSO-E. In the evening before the invasion, Ukraine disconnected its power system from that of russia and belarus in a first bid to test it for a few days. Long-term functioning of the Ukrainian power system in isolated mode was risky but our country wasn`t going to reconnect it with aggressors`. That’s why together with our partners we urged EU and Energy Community to connect our power system to ENTSO-E as soon as possible. Later several embassies and our Ministry of Energy called for the same and in a few weeks Ukrainian energy systems synchronized with the European.
As a member of Climate Action Network, we communicated with foreign partners about the current situation and the needs of our country since the first days of the invasion. At first, it was quite chaotic but soon we came up with a clear step that could help both Ukraine and the global climate movement – a ban on imports of russian fossil fuels that make 40% of russian federal budget. Since our founding, we’d been fighting fossil fuel for the sake of climate, and in the sixth year we were forced to fight it for the sake of our lives, too.
In the next months, we joined numerous actions held by our international partners, wrote joint statements and met with European governments and energy companies` leaders to persuade them to stop buying russian coal, gas and oil. Now, most of those fuels are partially sanctioned by the EU and the USA. Yet nuclear energy remains untouched. Since March, we called for cutting off russian influence in the sector too and even addressed the leaders of the EU and the US. But russian state nuclear company “Rosatom” that takes active part in occupation of our nuclear power plants is not mentioned in any sanctions lists. Recently Ukrainian leaders started to draw world`s attention to this issue too so we believe that soon this company will join the international ban list.
In the second week of the invasion, we began to recover and plan our next steps. We met with representatives of the Ministry of the Environment and started monitoring cases of potential environmental damage caused by russian war. During the year, we gathered more than 850 such cases on the interactive map. Currently, we’ve passed this job to our volunteer team, that regularly monitors open sources and adds new cases to the database. Their work helps us raise awareness both inside and outside Ukraine about damage done to our nature. For example, recently Greenpeace released our joint map with the most significant cases from our database.
Our people are our greatest value
At the beginning, our work with the volunteer community was complicated – here, too, we had to rethink a lot and look for new ways to support them. Because we should value and cherish those who are ready to protect the environment even in the middle of full-scale war. Communication quickly went back to online formats, because people moved to different parts of the country, and we had to build new connections. Nevertheless, the volunteer team stayed with us and even began to grow – and this inspired us to move forward even more.
Meeting of Ecoaction community dedicated to preparation to heating season
We were lucky enough to stay firmly on the ground even in very uncertain times – so we’ve put a lot of effort into helping our community. In the very first week after the invasion, we contacted not only colleagues, but also our members and offered them help if needed. Soon, our community raised funds for one of our members, who serves in the Armed Forces and needed equipment to repair machinery. Later, we also helped another member to gather money for his project of making vegan protein bars for the military.
It was also important for us that the entire environmental movement of Ukraine remained safe and strong and could make it to the victory and keep working after that. So, we supported temporarily displaced eco-activists, and with the help of Greenpeace paid for their rent. During the year, we were able to support more than 50 people.
One of the most difficult topics we worked on turned out to be just transition of coal towns. For the past 5 years, we have been working with 9 towns in Donetsk oblast and helping them plan their future development after coal phase-out. Even then, those towns were under threat, because they were in a few dozens of kilometers away from the Ukrainian territories occupied by russia. After February 24, they became one of the main targets of Russian attacks, and Vuhledar – one of our partner cities – is currently under attack.
Therefore, in the first months, instead of planning the future, our partner towns had to focus on survival, not development. And we provided humanitarian support – we bought and sent them food, medicine, generators, Ecoflows, etc. Yet in the second half of the year, it became clear that city leaders are still interested in planning their post-war future, so we are still helping them participate in discussions about future reconstruction, communicate their needs internationally and even meet with European leaders.
If you do something right, it will be right in any circumstances
We dedicated the first weeks and even months to helping wherever we could with whatever we had. But as the time passed, we realized that our work before the invasion remained necessary and even more important. Because environmental protection is not about just saving beautiful nature. It is also about preserving crucial resources: clean water and clean soils to grow crops. We need to protect our swamps so they could stop hostile armed forces moving from belarus. We need energy transition for our security. We need small sustainable farms to have shorter supply chains and food system that is more reliable.
Our role in the new world finally cleared up at the beginning of July, when most of our team gathered for an on-site meeting to plan our work for the next six months. Many people returned from abroad and talked to fellow Ukrainians in person and almost everyone was able to look into each other’s eyes – both for the first time in months. The offline meeting gave us a strong feeling that we are not alone, we support each other, and we all intuitively have already found the right way to move forward.
Earlier in spring, our government started to plan post-war recovery, and we took active part in the process. Eventually this issue became the leading topic in our new reality. We saw devastating impacts of war on our nature, energy and agriculture. Hence, we knew that building it all back is not enough – we need the recovery to be green and sustainable.
Our old energy system is based on big coal and nuclear power plants and generated energy needs to pass long distances to reach its consumers. That makes it vulnerable. One successful hit that damages even one electrical substation can turn off the lights in thousands of homes. Our vision of energy system – decentralized, based on renewables and supported by energy efficiency – makes the perfect solution that we keep advocating. Same as sustainable practices and support of the small local farms – we support it for the environment and for more healthy and accessible food for our people.
Renewable energy was also our new way to help Ukraine. In the Fall we bought and sent 10 solar panels to our defenders on the front line. Soon after that, we fundraised money to send 4 more. Together with Greenpeace and other NGO`s we also helped to rebuild a clinic in the village of Horenka near Kyiv. Russians almost ruined the settlement in the first months of the invasion, and the building suffered severe damage, too. We helped to install solar panels and a heat pump that might cover up to 60% of its electricity needs and reduce heating costs by 80%. And in case of further russian attacks on our energy infrastructure it might be able to keep working even with unstable electricity supply.
Russians also harm our ecosystems, and it forced us to adjust our work on this issue. Now we focus on including their recovery in Ukrainian post-war plans. Moreover, we added a completely new direction – the restoration of damaged soils. Shellings, the movement of heavy machinery and the very presence of russians harm our soils and make them dangerous for growing food. In the second half of the year, we conducted research on how our soils are suffering and how they can be restored. Soon we’ll present the results and will further promote the best solutions for them.
We renewed and strengthened our work with a volunteer team. These people have not lost their desire to help the environment, but on the contrary, they now approach the protection of nature with even more inspiration, which inspires us as well. In autumn, they held several lessons about climate change in Kyiv schools. A separate volunteer group has studied nature-based solutions that help cities adapt to climate change and created lists of such solutions for various purposes. Moreover, our work on collecting cases of potential damage to the environment is now their responsibility, too.
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At the end of 2022, we again visited the annual international climate conference COP27. Climate change also turned out to be a difficult topic that had to be revaluated. In the new conditions, it seemed inappropriate to talk about a climate catastrophe. However, in the end, this topic also found its place in our new world, and now we are working to ensure that the reconstruction of our country takes this risk into account, and the plans include measures that will help tackle it.
Therefore, COP27 became a major event for us. This year, for the first time in history, Ukraine had its own pavilion, where the government and partners organized events and raised awareness of the international community about the impact of the war in Ukraine on nature and on the global climate. Ecoaction helped organise the work of the pavilion and even held its own events, so we could raise our voices, too.
We do something meaningful, and it helps us keep working
If at the beginning of the full-scale invasion it seemed that our work was meaningless, this view has completely changed now – it has become larger and more valuable. The environment now faces even more challenges, so we have even more things to do with an even larger team. This is our greatest achievement of this year. We managed to find the strength to keep doing our job and even to grow and develop. But it is still difficult for us, like everyone else in Ukraine, to find the power that can keep us moving.
However, we are still learning to seek motivation and determination in everyday things. Someone channels their stress into knitting or baking, someone escapes from reality in movies, books or podcasts, someone learns not to give up and to be brave from their pets. But the two greatest pillars we stand on are our work and our people. We understand that we do something important, so we keep making effort. And we see that we are not alone in our struggle.
Our co-workers, most of whom have already returned to Kyiv and can now gather and have a chat in the office kitchen. Colleagues at the front, who sometimes text in our work chats and say hi. A community that supports our initiatives and inspires us to move forward. CSO`s from Ukraine, which are always ready to cooperate and have already become close, like family. Friendly organizations from abroad that support us. Close ones who understand our feelings because they are going through the same everyday stress and struggle. Every person in Ukraine who does everything they can for our victory. All of them inspire us and give us strength. They are our greatest value that we hope to keep close to our hearts. And they are the ones we advocate for.
We’ve started 2023 as every other year before – with an evaluation of what was done and outlining of what we plan to achieve. Moreover, at the beginning of February, we met again to reassess our long-term goals, because our team has a clear vision of how we want our country to be in the coming decades. During this year, our faith in our army, our country and our people has only been strengthened. And we have no doubts that thanks to the efforts of millions of Ukrainian men and women – including our own efforts – we will cope with everything and will be able to save the country, return what was taken from us by russians and build it all back better.
So if you share our views on the current situation in Ukraine and the world in general and want to support the Ukrainian environmental movement, you can support us financially. We appreciate every amount of donation!