‘Forests of Ukraine’ plant almost 5,000 ha of new trees this year

Yurii Bolokhovets, Director General of the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine,” said this in an interview with Ukrinform.

“This year we will plant more than 200 million tree seedlings, which is more than last year. The large-scale reforestation campaign is underway. It is an ongoing process that cannot be postponed for the period of post-war recovery. But there are two problems. Access to many forest areas has been lost. The State Enterprise ‘Forests of Ukraine’ alone has 170,000 hectares of mined forests. There is a border strip in the north. There are frontline areas. This limits our options,” said the director general.

The second problem is the lack of free land for planting. As Bolokhovets explained, since most of the plots are already forested, the company’s representatives ask local authorities to transfer free land for reforestation.

“This year, ‘Forests of Ukraine’ submitted 343 applications to transfer 24,400 hectares to us. However, we received positive decisions for only 5,900 hectares. This year, we have created almost 5,000 hectares of new forests where they have never existed before,” said the director.

He added that the state-owned enterprise is ready to plant more forests if there are areas for planting, so it all depends on the decision of the communities and local authorities.

In addition, last year the company began restoring forests in the south by planting 3,400 hectares, which is significantly more than in the previous ten years.

This year, even more forests were created in the Mykolaiv and Odesa regions, with mixed plantations resistant to fire and climate change.

“As for the plans for next year, I would say that the company has the funds, but where do you get the land? We have about 1,800 hectares of free land for reforestation that was previously used as farmland. We are constantly appealing to local communities – if we don’t reforest together, climate change will turn the southern regions into a sun-scorched desert,” added Bolokhovets.

As reported, the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” plans to increase the area of new forests by 716.8 hectares in the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions as part of this year’s reforestation campaign.