NULES of Ukraine Won Green Star Award

A select group of outstanding individuals and organisations from around the world, who have confronted environmental emergencies ranging from the Fukushima nuclear disaster and Hurricane Sandy, to forest fires and climate change, were honoured on 2 September 2013 as recipients of the third Green Star Awards.

The biennial Green Star Awards are a joint initiative between the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Green Cross International and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

One of the awards was granted to the Associate Professor of the Department of Forestry of the Educational and Research Institute of Forestry and Park Gardening, Sergiy Zibtsev. During the last 20 years of his professional career, Sergiy Zibtsev devoted his efforts for preventing wildfires of catastrophic dimensions in forests contaminated by radioactivity, as a consequence of the failure of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986. He assessed the effects of a worst-case scenario of a wildfire burning in contaminated terrain and mobilized political awareness to take appropriate action.

Over the last few years, experts from leading national and foreign institutions and international organizations have been involved into work on this problem: Yale University and University of Washington, the USA, Chopivsky Family Foundation, the USA, Global Fire Monitoring Center, Germany, Global Wildland Fire Network (GWFN), OSCE, Council of Europe, the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), ministries and departments of Ukraine.

Green Star Award promotes a positive image of Ukraine as a country that takes timely measures aimed at preventing emergencies and increasing readiness to tackle such disasters if they occur.