Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has charged Kyiv municipal authorities with expanding the area of Holosiivsky National Park.
"Holosiivsky National Park is a unique phenomenon, a pearl in the center of a megalopolis," President Yanukovych said at the Kyiv mayor’s office while summing up the results of a presentation of Kyiv’s Development Strategy until 2025.
"The park could be an ecological visiting card of Kyiv, but the authorities aren’t paying attention to this opportunity," the president said.
Yanukovych added that Kyiv’s authorities had ignored a presidential order of 2007 on the creation of this park.
"For several years the environmental protection ministry has not been able to take over Kyivzelenbud’s land, as envisaged by a respective presidential order," he said.
The president called on deputies of Kyiv City Council and environmental protection organizations, as well as the Natural Resources Ministry, to support the expansion of the territory of the park using areas of the Dnipro Islands regional landscape park and the Zhukiv Island municipal wildlife reserve.
He also noted that recently many land plots from this territory, which had been embezzled, had been returned to the city.
"I ask you to resolve these land issues as soon as possible, and to prepare and submit proposals on the expansion of the area of the national park," Yanukovych said.
