Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

The habit of abuse of natural resources in Ukraine has accelerated in Ukraine’s 17 years of independence with mass logging and the stripping of rocks from riverbeds, particularly in Western regions

and infrastructure, and incurring an estimated $1.2 billion in damages, has partially to do with rocks and trees.

The habit of abuse of natural resources in Ukraine was inherited from Soviet days. It has, perhaps, accelerated in Ukraine’s 17 years of independence with mass logging and the stripping of rocks from riverbeds, particularly in Western regions.

Some of the logging happens on a minor scale by the residents who seek cheap resources for building. But there are also elaborate schemes involving corrupt local forestry officials and cover-ups that sometimes go all the way to Kyiv.

Stripped of trees, the mountains turn into funnels for vast amounts of water that arrives in the spring when the snow melts, or in other seasons as the rain falls. This alone is a dangerous formula capable of producing, or worsening, massive floods, as the country experienced last week.

The rivers have themselves on a massive scale been stripped of their natural fortification – the riverbed rocks, or shale. Using bulldozers and trucks, shale has been scrapped, often without permits, and shipped to Kyiv, where it is re-sold at markets or along highways to wealthy citizens decorating their flashy dachas.

The complicated logging and riverbed quarrying schemes are difficult to fight but the country certainly has the resources for it. Although several government organs including the Ministry for Natural Resources have the function of control over the use of natural resources, there has been no significant prosecution of illegal logging and other related crimes.

Ministry officials have told the Kyiv Post that a few local residents have been caught for chopping down single pines in the Carpathians, but the true criminals escape responsibility.

The recent disaster should make it easier to educate the local ‘Ivans’ about the dangers of illegal logging and riverbed quarrying, but it will only address a tiny segment of the problem. The real meaningful action required is to punish illegal loggers and anyone involved in corrupt cover-ups.