The Ukrain­ian Carpathi­ans are strong­holds for primeval and old-growth forests in Europe, but face pres­sure from large scale log­ging. Pro­tect­ed areas (PAs) in these forests now also face an acute exis­ten­tial threat as gov­ern­ment fund­ing has all but ceased as a result of the eco­nom­ic pres­sures stem­ming from the Russ­ian inva­sion. To ensure effec­tive pro­tec­tion, the project pro­vides a life-line, tem­porar­i­ly ensur­ing the essen­tial oper­a­tional needs of the PAs are met on a month­ly basis. In the longer term, pro­tect­ed areas will be pro­vid­ed with mod­ern equip­ment, train­ing and tech­ni­cal assis­tance such as the devel­op­ment of mod­ern bio­di­ver­si­ty mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems and man­age­ment plans. Com­mu­ni­ties will ben­e­fit from com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment plans and financ­ing, direct sup­port for nature-friend­ly small busi­ness­es and a large-scale envi­ron­men­tal infor­ma­tion cam­paign. Nature con­ser­va­tion of primeval forests will also con­tribute to deal­ing with emo­tion­al con­se­quences of war for Ukraini­ans.

This project is imple­ment­ed by www.fzs.org