Ukraine’s Minister of Environment talks about the impact of war on environment, post-war recovery and necessary reforms

At the end of February, with the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the russian federation, the ministry's agenda had to be radically changed, and the environmental policy had to be shaped by the new wartime realities.

It was written by the Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, Ruslan Strilets, reporting on his 100 days as head of the Ministry of Environment. Before that, he worked for about six months as acting deputy.

✔️Fix every crime committed by russians against the Ukrainian environment.

The Ministry of Environment, together with the State Environmental Inspectorate, documents the crimes of russians against Ukrainian nature 24/7. Since the war began, we have recorded more than 2,000 such facts. And we are sure that russia will answer for each of them. We are already preparing lawsuits in international courts.

We are doing what no one in the world has done before us. We have developed ten new methods for calculating the damage caused to the environment. The amount of damages from russia's aggression already reaches 204 billion hryvnias.

These developments are of global importance. russia is the main eco-terrorist today. If the world does not understand this in time, Ukraine will have to share its methods with other countries.

✔️ Despite the war, continue reforms.

All this time, we did not stop advocating key European integration environmental reforms. They emphasized the importance of their consideration in the Parliament as soon as possible. The Council approved many of them. In particular, the long-awaited framework Law On Waste Management has not changed since 1998. We already have a road map for the quality implementation of the reform. Our goal is to make waste management more efficient and safer for people and the environment.

Amendments have been made to the legislation on forest conservation. In particular, self-sowing forests on agricultural lands have been legalized. The Law on improving the mechanism of regulating emissions of polluting substances into atmospheric air was adopted. The first reading approved the draft Law On the National Register of Emissions and Transfer of Pollutants.

The government approved the documents we prepared. In particular, they agreed:

• uniform requirements for preservation and protection of forests;
• action plan for the implementation of the Biosafety and Biological Protection Strategy for 2022-2025;
• special fees for calculating the damage to the nature reserve fund, etc.

On our initiative, 32 hectares of land will be included in the Siniohora National Park by Presidential Decree. And the well-known Mezhyhirya will become a monument of garden and park art of national significance.

✔️ Enlist the support of international partners.

Recently, the European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginius Sinkavičius and I signed an agreement on joining the Ministry of Environment in the LIFE program, which will help us finance environmental projects even before joining the European Union.

We signed Memorandums of Understanding and Cooperation with the Ministry of Climate and Environment of Poland, the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the Czech Republic, and an implementation agreement to the Paris Agreement between the Government of Ukraine and the Swiss Confederation.

✔️ Digitize.

"The state in a smartphone" is one of the tasks set by the President of Ukraine to the government even before the war. Now there is even more understanding that our country needs to develop even faster, not only to return to the level of February 24 but also to surpass it. Therefore, the Ministry of Environment continues to move toward automation of administrative processes and implementation of new IT solutions taking into account the needs of the time.

Therefore, we developed and launched the web resource and mobile application "EcoThreat." In it, everyone can check indicators of the state of the environment at any point on the map of Ukraine, as well as report on the facts of nature destruction.

We have simplified and digitized the procedure for drawing up a conclusion on cross-border transportation of Yellow List waste. We created an electronic service for obtaining a license for handling hazardous waste. Access to the OVD register has been restored.

✔️ Restore the destroyed.

At the conference in Lugano, we presented the ecological component of the Recovery Plan of Ukraine. Today, there are already 76 projects worth 25.5 billion euros. 211 leading experts in 9 thematic subgroups worked on them. We plan to start the implementation of some projects already this year.

Of course, there is a lot of work and new challenges ahead. Today I understand that in times of irreversible changes, it is necessary to live in their background and participate in their creation. Only in this way do they not exhaust but give strength to move on.