Representatives of the Institute of Forestry and Landscape-Park Management took part in a meeting of the Working Group of the Committee on Environmental Policy and Nature Management on the causes of forest fires and their prevention in the future

Professor of the Department of Silviculture Sergiy Zibtsev and Associate Professor of the Department of Botany, Dendrology and Forest Breeding Yuriy Marchuk were invited as experts to the first meeting of the Working Group of the Committee on Environmental Policy and Nature Management and the Committee on Law Enforcement on the causes of forest fires and their prevention in the future, which took place on June 11, 2020 in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The meeting was co-chaired by the Chairmen of the Committees - Mr. Oleg Bondarenko and Mr. Denis Monastyrsky.

The Working Group was set up at the suggestion of the majority of deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine after the April mass fires in the Zhytomyr region and in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, which covered up to 95,000 hectares of different landscapes. The Working Group consists of 25 members, including People's Deputies, the Acting Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine, leadership of the State Agency of Forest Resources of Ukraine, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, the State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone Management, leadership of the Zhytomyr Regional State Administration, Heads of the Zhytomyr and Kyiv Forestry and Hunting Management, Chairman of the Society of Foresters of Ukraine, Head of the Regional Eastern Europe Fire Monitoring Center and other organizations.

Presentation from the Regional Eastern Europe Fire Monitoring Center (REEFMC) highlithed most important aspects and steps on fire management needed in Ukraine based on experience and long-term co-operation with Prof. Johann Georg Goldammer  - director of the Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC). The cooperation has been supported by the European and Mediterranean Major Hazards Agreement (European Open Partial Agreement EUR-OPA) of the Council of Europe and the OSCE (https://gfmc.online/programmes/europe-org/eu_multi_org.html)

The members of the Ukrainian Parliament’s  Working Group on fires listened with great interest and discussed the talk of Yuriy Marchuk "On urgent steps to strengthen fire management" and presentation of Sergiy Zibtsev "Landscape fires in Ukraine: causes and management", in which main points of the Appeal of REEFMC to the President of Ukraine “On urgent measures during extreme fire danger” as well as concept and model of the Law of Ukraine "On development of the National system of landscape fires management and professional forest firefighters service " were presented.

Following the meeting, NULES of Ukraine representatives Sergiy Zibtsev and Yuriy Marchuk were invited to the State Agency of Forest Resources of Ukraine to work out joint steps to increase fire preparedness in the Zhytomyr Forestry and Hunting Management. It is planned to continue work on the draft law. The next field meeting of the Working Group will take place in the Zhytomyr Oblast in the areas most affected by fires.