You're reading: Field protective tree lines being destroyed in Ukraine quickly

Ukraine is losing thousands of hectares of tree lines that protect fields from drought and soil erosion, the State Service for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre of Ukraine has reported.

According to the report on the government’s website, the authority studied the state of protective tree and bush lines in 12 regions where the problem is acute: Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Kirovohrad, Odesa, Poltava, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Kherson, Khmelnytsky and Cherkasy regions.

Serious deviation from figures in the land explications in projects on privatization of lands of agricultural companies (1995-1997) was recorded. Total loss in 12 regions is 10,071 ha.

“Trees are mainly cut by local residents for own needs or to sell them as firewood or timber,” the authority said.

The largest losses of protective tree lines are recorded southern regions of Ukraine: Kherson (3,271 ha), Zaporizhia (2,266 ha), Mykolaiv (1,654 ha) and Odesa (1,638 ha) regions.

The authority is preparing an analytics for the Ukrainian regions. All information will be submitted to Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers to take required measures.

Authority Head Maksym Martyniuk said that this problem again proves the necessity of introducing the effective mechanism for supervising land utilization in the country.