Biodiversity in Times of War: How Nature Conservation Brings Ukraine Closer to the EU

Author: Volodymyr Domash­linets, Forestry and Bio­di­ver­si­ty Expert, IKI Inter­face Project (GIZ)

While Ukraine is fight­ing for its free­dom, the issue of envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion often seems sec­ondary. Yet the destruc­tion of nature direct­ly affects people’s lives: the war is destroy­ing forests, steppes, and wet­lands, poi­son­ing soils and water bod­ies. This is not only an envi­ron­men­tal issue but also a food, eco­nom­ic, and secu­ri­ty prob­lem. If the coun­try aims not only to recov­er but also to build its future as a full mem­ber of the Euro­pean Union, bio­di­ver­si­ty con­ser­va­tion must become a pri­or­i­ty now — since pub­lic health, food qual­i­ty, clean water, and eco­nom­ic resilience depend on it.

Today, as the war con­tin­ues, we must talk not only about the loss­es of nature but also about how to pre­serve ecosys­tems under con­stant attack, which is also crit­i­cal for Ukraine’s com­mit­ments to the Euro­pean Union. Bio­di­ver­si­ty is not an abstrac­tion but a resource that deter­mines whether we will be able to pro­duce safe food, pro­vide peo­ple with drink­ing water, and reduce health risks.

In this col­umn, we will delve into why bio­di­ver­si­ty is the foun­da­tion of Ukraine’s Euro­pean future, how the war affects it, and what we can do to pre­serve it. We will also explain why Ukraine’s recov­ery must con­cern not only cities and roads but also the com­pre­hen­sive restora­tion of ecosys­tems — since this is the foun­da­tion of our life.

The Cost of Destruction and Its Impact on People

Russia’s full-scale inva­sion has become a cat­a­stro­phe not only for cities and peo­ple but also for Ukraine’s nature. Ecosys­tems formed over thou­sands of years are being destroyed in days due to shelling, heavy machin­ery, fires, explo­sions, min­ing, and the con­struc­tion of for­ti­fi­ca­tions. Forests, steppes, and wet­lands are turn­ing into dead zones, while habi­tats for plants and ani­mals are being lost. These loss­es have direct con­se­quences for peo­ple: con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed soils reduce nat­ur­al fer­til­i­ty, and some agri­cul­tur­al lands become unsuit­able for farm­ing, which direct­ly affects har­vests and people’s well-being.

Water pol­lu­tion also direct­ly affects human life: chem­i­cals from muni­tions, fuel, and destroyed indus­tri­al facil­i­ties poi­son rivers, lakes, and ground­wa­ter. These ecosys­tem changes will remain for decades and impact food secu­ri­ty, pub­lic health, and the econ­o­my. Already, around 10 mil­lion Ukraini­ans have no access to safe and reli­able water sup­ply, and 20 mil­lion lack access to cen­tral­ized waste­water col­lec­tion and treat­ment.

The cat­a­stro­phe caused by Russia’s destruc­tion of the Kakhov­ka Hydro­elec­tric Pow­er Plant in June 2023 wiped out com­plex aquat­ic ecosys­tems: count­less fish and oth­er aquat­ic organ­isms, birds, amphib­ians, and rep­tiles died; habi­tats of rare and endem­ic species dis­ap­peared. Accord­ing to some esti­mates, the loss­es to the fish­ing indus­try due to the dam’s destruc­tion exceed­ed 11,000 tons of fish worth 10 bil­lion UAH, sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduc­ing access to an impor­tant food source for the pop­u­la­tion and depriv­ing thou­sands of fish­ers and relat­ed busi­ness­es of income. Accord­ing to the Min­istry of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and Nat­ur­al Resources of Ukraine (now inte­grat­ed into the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment, and Agri­cul­ture), the envi­ron­men­tal dam­age from this act of ter­ror­ism is esti­mat­ed in the tens of bil­lions of hryv­nias.

These exam­ples demon­strate: nature restora­tion is not a dis­tant prospect but a crit­i­cal con­di­tion for sur­vival and devel­op­ment now. While Ukraine is fight­ing for its right to free­dom, it also has the chance to lay the foun­da­tion for a new mod­el of recov­ery — sus­tain­able, safe, human- and envi­ron­ment-ori­ent­ed. For this, it is impor­tant not only to react to the con­se­quences of war but also to act proac­tive­ly — build­ing a sys­tem that pro­tects nat­ur­al resources from fur­ther loss. Here, inter­na­tion­al envi­ron­men­tal oblig­a­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly those linked to Euro­pean inte­gra­tion, play a sig­nif­i­cant role.

Why Biodiversity Is Not Just an EU Requirement but a Matter of Survival

Ukraine’s acces­sion to the Euro­pean Union requires ful­fill­ing a num­ber of envi­ron­men­tal com­mit­ments aimed at improv­ing qual­i­ty of life and ensur­ing the long-term well-being of the pop­u­la­tion. For exam­ple, the Asso­ci­a­tion Agree­ment (Chap­ter 27) con­tains a sep­a­rate sec­tion devot­ed specif­i­cal­ly to nature pro­tec­tion. It stip­u­lates that the coun­try must har­mo­nize its leg­is­la­tion with Euro­pean law by imple­ment­ing the EU Habi­tats and Birds Direc­tives. Their goal is to pre­serve nat­ur­al habi­tats and pop­u­la­tions of plants and ani­mals, pre­vent­ing their degra­da­tion and loss. These direc­tives formed the basis for the cre­ation of Europe’s largest eco­log­i­cal net­work, Natu­ra 2000. Ukraine has com­mit­ted to devel­op­ing its ana­logue — the Emer­ald Net­work, which already cov­ers 377 sites.

How­ev­er, the essence of these doc­u­ments is not lim­it­ed to legal for­mal­i­ties. They are intend­ed to safe­guard the fun­da­men­tal resources on which human life depends: soils, water, air, and the food base. Dur­ing the war, these nat­ur­al resources have come under threat. Accord­ing to the Min­istry of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and Nat­ur­al Resources of Ukraine (now the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment, and Agri­cul­ture of Ukraine), about 20% of pro­tect­ed areas have already been dam­aged or are at risk of destruc­tion. This means the loss not only of rare species but also of fer­tile lands and asso­ci­at­ed nat­ur­al com­plex­es capa­ble of pro­vid­ing essen­tial ecosys­tem ser­vices.

The prob­lem becomes even more acute in light of the glob­al “30 by 30” goal, sup­port­ed by Ukraine: by 2030, 30% of land and marine areas must be con­served. This task seems hard­er today than ever before, but its impor­tance only grows. The more ter­ri­to­ries are destroyed or pol­lut­ed, the few­er areas remain where safe crops can be grown, drink­ing water obtained, and eco­log­i­cal resilience main­tained.

Thus, bio­di­ver­si­ty is not mere­ly an abstract EU require­ment or a con­di­tion for access to Euro­pean mar­kets. It is a mat­ter of the country’s sur­vival: our food, health, eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty, and abil­i­ty to rebuild after the war at a qual­i­ta­tive­ly new lev­el.

Ukraine’s Next Steps: The Path to Recovery and a European Future

Despite enor­mous chal­lenges, Ukraine has a unique chance to rethink its devel­op­ment mod­el and inte­grate respect for nature as a cor­ner­stone of future recov­ery. This is not only about envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion but about secu­ri­ty, resilience, Euro­pean inte­gra­tion, and long-term recon­struc­tion. In this con­text, sev­er­al inter­re­lat­ed direc­tions must form the eco­log­i­cal archi­tec­ture of Ukraine’s future:

1. Devel­op­ment of a Nation­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Strat­e­gy and Action Plan. A work­ing group is already draft­ing a strate­gic doc­u­ment that takes into account post-war chal­lenges, aligns with the deci­sions of the Con­fer­ence of the Par­ties to the Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty, meets Euro­pean require­ments, and will become the foun­da­tion for long-term con­ser­va­tion pol­i­cy.
2. Inte­gral envi­ron­men­tal mon­i­tor­ing, includ­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty. Effec­tive man­age­ment of nat­ur­al resources is impos­si­ble with­out accu­rate, up-to-date infor­ma­tion about their con­di­tion. There­fore, estab­lish­ing a mod­ern mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem becomes a top pri­or­i­ty. The project “IKI Inter­face: Sup­port­ing Ukraine on the Path to an Ambi­tious and Inte­grat­ed Cli­mate Pol­i­cy (GreenUkraine),” imple­ment­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH, is work­ing in this direc­tion. With­in the project, tech­ni­cal sup­port is planned for the devel­op­ment of bio­di­ver­si­ty mon­i­tor­ing in Ukraine and the imple­men­ta­tion of oth­er wildlife pro­tec­tion mea­sures, enabling informed deci­sion-mak­ing, time­ly respons­es to threats, and effec­tive nat­ur­al resource man­age­ment.
3. Ecosys­tem restora­tion. Pri­or­i­ty actions include dem­i­ning ter­ri­to­ries, land recla­ma­tion, and the restora­tion of water bod­ies, steppes, and forests. Such mea­sures not only return nat­ur­al wealth but also strength­en com­mu­ni­ty resilience and con­tribute to their eco­nom­ic recov­ery.
4. Har­mo­niza­tion of leg­is­la­tion with EU stan­dards. Imple­ment­ing the Habi­tats and Birds Direc­tives and oth­er EU nature pro­tec­tion leg­is­la­tion is a nec­es­sary con­di­tion for inte­grat­ing into the Euro­pean eco­log­i­cal space and gain­ing access to finan­cial sup­port instru­ments.
5. Expan­sion of inter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships. The imple­men­ta­tion of large-scale con­ser­va­tion pro­grams requires the involve­ment of experts, donors, investors, and coor­di­na­tion between state and non-state actors.

The future of Ukraine depends on which path we choose — a frag­ment­ed one focused only on infra­struc­ture, or a holis­tic one that includes nature. Efforts to pre­serve and restore bio­di­ver­si­ty are not a tech­ni­cal task but a defin­ing choice: whether to remain a state vul­ner­a­ble to eco­log­i­cal crises or to become resilient, respon­si­ble, and tru­ly Euro­pean. If these actions are con­sis­tent and coor­di­nat­ed, Ukraine will be able not only to restore what has been destroyed but also to cre­ate a new mod­el of har­mo­nious coex­is­tence with nature.

This mate­r­i­al was pre­pared by the project “IKI Inter­face: Sup­port­ing Ukraine towards Ambi­tious and Inte­grat­ed Cli­mate Pol­i­cy (Green Ukraine)”, imple­ment­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the Fed­er­al Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Ener­gy (BMWE), with­in the frame­work of the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI).