During 2019, the NGO “Ecosphera” worked in the field of involving active citizens of Zakarpattia in public control over the use of forest resources of the region. As a result of expert work of the organization’s specialists, as well as field information collected in the framework of the established public information network, the main problems in forestry of the region (and country) were identified, including the causes of these problems. Among the reasons were: 1) inefficiency of the state body of environmental control – the State Environmental Inspectorate; and 2) the inaction of law enforcement agencies, including the National Police (http://ekosphera.org/category/publications/documents/).
As the experience of our work has shown, it is possible to influence the situation through 1) maximum publicity and quality coverage of cases in the media; 2) professional and qualified work with the use of various methods, such as the use of remote sensing of the earth, geolocation in photo documentation, analysis of maps of the technological process of logging, video recording by quadcopter. These methods make it possible to gather irrefutable evidence for state control and law enforcement agencies.
The idea of the project is to create a website and a mobile application through which anyone who sees the offense in the woods will be able to publish it. After two levels of verification of this information, it will become public and online. The mobile application and website will be a quality information resource for the media, law enforcement agencies, SEI and other public authorities. According to the facts of offenses, our experts form official appeals to the State Ecological Inspectorate in the Zakarpattia region and the National Police. The results of these appeals are displayed on the site. In this way, we will keep online statistics on the implementation / non-implementation of control actions provided by law. The materials of these statistics will be presented at a press conference, as well as at a round table with the participation of all stakeholders. This approach will reduce the ability of the SEI and law enforcement agencies not to respond to our appeals, and thus reduce the possibility of corruption by these state regulatory agencies.
Territory of activity: Zakarpattia region of Ukraine.
Objective: to help reduce the ability of law enforcement agencies and the state environmental inspectorate to commit acts of corruption in the form of online mismanagement through the creation of an online tool for recording and mapping forestry offenses and to provide extensive coverage of illegal logging and misuse of forests. in the Zakarpattia region.
Results:
- An effective and efficient mobile application Legal Forest has been created, as the main tool for publicity and reducing the ability of state regulatory authorities to act against corruption. There is also a website www.savecarpathianforest.org, harmonized with the mobile application, which displays complete information on all recorded incidents.
- The new online resource in the media space was popularized (1-3 thousand visits per month were achieved) as a reliable source of information and a resource for entering your own data.
- A round table was held to discuss the problem of abuses and offenses in the forest sector and the effectiveness of the response of state regulatory authorities with the participation of all stakeholders – 15 people.
Partners: International Renaissance Foundation.
