15 December 2010, 12:37
Mykola Tomenko, Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine appealed to the Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov with a request to elucidate the stance of the Cabinet of Minister of Ukraine regarding the active attempts of the paralimentary majority to deny prohibition of hunting in the national reserves.
On December 2, 2010, the bill "On the Nature Reserve Fund of Ukraine" (Reg. No.7421) was registered in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Deputies of Ukraine from the Party of Regions M. Komar and non-affiliated People´s Deputies V. Kamchatnyi, I. Rybakov, V. Kaplienko and H. Zadyrko suggested that the Parliament denied prohibition of hunting in the zones of anthropogenic landscape of biosphere reserves, in the territory of wildlife preserves, in the protected nature territories and in the facilities of the nature-reserve fund.
M. Tomenko reminded that in October 2010, the same bill was drafted by V. Makeev and L. Klimov, People´s Deputies of Ukraine, however, the bill was recalled by its authors due to the active position of the environmental organizations and mass media.
The Deputy Chairman emphasised that the accompanying documents failed to present any arguments of the authors concerning the environmental admission to the respective relevant territories. "I am convinced that any resolution on the alleviation or change of the environmental regime in the territories and facilities of the national reserve fund, biosphere reserve in particular, can be adopted only after wide consultations and expert review of the respective scientific, public and other environmental organizations", he stressed.
According to the Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, such legislative initiatives raise serious concern on the background of the general situation with the reserves in Ukraine. He reminded that the Ukrainian reserve territories comprised 7% of the total territory of the country against European 12-15%.