86% of residents of Ukrainian communities generally positively relate to the establishment of new nature protected areas. In particular, 42% fully support such initiatives, and 44% rather support than not.
Such a result of research, conducted on the order of the NGO Ecoaction in 19 communities from different regions of Ukraine. They surveyed almost a thousand people, and before that, conducted in-depth interviews with experts.
“We wanted to understand why the pace of creation of new objects of the nature reserve fund in Ukraine is so slow. And saw that residents of communities often do not know about their protected territories, or do not understand why there is a need to establish them,” says Bohdan Kuchеnko, expert in ecosystem conservation of the NGO “Ecoaction”.
As Ecoaction noted, the strategic goal of Ukraine is to have 15% of its territory under nature protection by 2030. That is about 9 million hectares. Currently, less than 7% of the country’s area is under protection. Over the last five years, the increase in the area of the nature reserve fund has been on average only 0.06% per year. At such a pace, it will require more than 100 years to reach the goal.
One of the main obstacles mentioned is the complicated procedure of agreeing on new objects of the nature reserve fund with the communities, which, under the decentralization reform, became managers of the majority of the land. Often, communities either do not respond to requests or fear losing land or facing restrictions on use.
“About 40% of respondents consider as a risk that the establishment of protected areas will lead to land grabbing. But in reality, in most cases, land is not taken from the community’s ownership; just some restrictions are established to ensure nature conservation. And this gives guarantees that these territories will not be destroyed by urban development, plowing, or clear-cutting,” explains Bohdan Kuchеnko.
In addition, some of those surveyed consider the establishment of protected territories irrelevant during the war. Although the paradox is that it is exactly the war that accelerated the destruction of natural territories, thus, nature protection is needed now more than ever.
“There are also fears regarding loss of jobs. But at the same time, this is an opportunity for communities to create jobs of a different type: in the field of nature protection, science and tourism, as well as improvement of quality of life due to enhancement of ecological conditions in communities,” adds Bohdan Kuchеnko.
The research also showed that in communities, there is almost no dialogue about the establishment of nature protection territories: 88% of those surveyed stated that no one explained why it is needed, and more than 77% generally did not participate in any meetings or discussions on this topic.
To make the expansion of the nature reserve fund possible, it is important to establish simple and open communication with residents.
People on the ground mostly support the establishment of nature protected territories in their communities. At the same time, there are many caveats, mostly related to imagined fears — a consequence of the low level of ecological education in Ukraine. Solving this problem requires establishing systematic communication between scientists, officials, and local residents, while explaining understandable benefits for communities, including new opportunities for local development from the creation of specific nature protected territories.
It is also important to engage representatives of local self-government bodies in finding opportunities for community development, together with increasing the area of the nature reserve fund and planning concrete steps in this direction.
According to the results of this research, Ecoaction has prepared and distributed to the communities a guide, where fears about new nature protection territories were debunked, while the advantages and opportunities from the establishment of the new nature-protected areas were highlighted.
Material was prepared within the project “Program of comprehensive green recovery for the Barvinkivska territorial community with focus on biodiversity conservation”, which is implemented with financial support of the International Renaissance Foundation, as well as with financial support of Austausch e.V. and Bread for the World.
Translated from Ukrainian by Ecoaction volunteer