Each hectare of protected nature plays an important role in preserving biodiversity. Without borders, it can be another appropriated land for a mansion or recreation complex. With borders – it is a valuable protected area. To preserve protected areas a cadastral map of territories and objects of the Nature Reserve Fund (NRF) of Ukraine is needed.

What is the problem?

The main problem is that there is still no complete and detailed geographical data on the location of the territories and objects of the NRF. Due to this, violations of the environmental regime of land use occur, areas are built up or ruined. On the public cadastral map of Ukraine, information on protected areas is incomplete, and in some places, inaccurate.

Another problem is that all-important constituent documents of protected areas are stored in paper format. In addition, they are also scattered in various institutions – some in the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine (MENR), others – in regional state administrations. It is inconvenient to work with such documents and there is a serious risk of their loss due to negligence or emergencies, as happened with the archives of the Chernivtsi region.

Boundaries for 8,600 territories of NRF

Therefore, within the framework of the Support of Nature Protected Areas in Ukraine project, an open database of all territories and objects of the NRF will be created with exact boundaries, information about their status and environmental value.

“This data will be open and accessible to the general public and will have an important informational role – no one will be able to say that they did not see and did not know that there is a protected area. The development of these data will also stimulate the inclusion of the NRF boundaries in the state land cadastre with their subsequent acquisition of official status, ”said Daria Svidzinska, the NRF cadastre development manager.

In addition, important documents about the territories and objects of the NRF will be published in a convenient digital form: decisions on creation, regulations, protection obligations, maps, etc.

This information will be available to everyone. Scientists will receive data for their research, the public – materials for monitoring the procedures of Strategic Environmental Assessment and Environmental Impact Assessment, United Territorial Communities – tools for inventory and management of natural and recreational resources.

The first data will be published in September

At the beginning of this year, specialists began work on the NRF cadastre. It will gradually be filled with data and documentation. Pilot territories and objects of Transcarpathian and Kharkiv regions, which are more than 100 objects, will be published in September this year. In two years, information on all territories and objects of the NRF will be gradually entered into the cadastre database.

Currently, the project specialists are collecting initial data and materials, together with the MENR are developing a methodology for creating data and their technical specifications, working on updating the regulatory framework. Maintenance of the cadastre will be provided by a specialist of the MENR. The SNPA project provided equipment for the workplace of the cadastre specialist.