«Nature will have to rest»: What will happen to Kinburn after the deoccupation

After the deoccupation, the Kinburn spit will need time to restore nature on its own. This will take place during the period while demining of the protected area continues.

This was reported by the deputy director of the National Nature Park «Biloberezhzhia Sviatoslava» Pavlo Kholodniak, according to the article «Let's bring back the forgotten kulans: how rewilding will help restore the protected steppes of the south».

During the occupation, at least 6,500 hectares of the National Nature Park «Biloberezhzhia Sviatoslava» burned on the Kinburn spit: these are forest massifs, steppe zones, floodplain systems, and lowland plants. Some zones of the protected area were repeatedly affected five times, Pavlo Kholodniak reported.

«In all their years, these lands have never seen anything like this. Not only the national park was affected, but the entire left bank. This is generally a deterioration of the entire biodiversity there,» said the deputy director of the national park.

Today, animals cannot exist there, Pavlo Kholodniak is convinced. However, in the future, it is possible to restore the Kinburn spit — after deoccupation, nature will first need to be given a rest, he added.

«For example, forest areas need the affected root system to rest as well. So that it rots and leaves the already healthy soil under it. But this territory will be demined for a very long time. And during this, nature will have time to rest after all the terrible events. Then an expert analysis and field survey will be carried out,» explained Pavlo Kholodniak.

It is worth noting that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, the territory of the Kinburn spit has been occupied by the Russian military. Actually, from there, the Russians have been shelling Ochakiv and Kutsurub communities of the Mykolaiv region for more than a year.

During the entire period of occupation, forests on the Kinburn spit occasionally burned. The situation is usually complicated by the fact that the Russian occupiers did not allow rescuers to put out the fire, so fires can last for weeks. At the same time, as noted in RMA, Mykolaiv Oblast cannot help extinguish fires there, as all fire departments and equipment that can get there are located in the occupied territories of Kherson Oblast.

The red book orchids, other unique plants and animals were under threat because of the fires in Kinburn, reported the ombudsman Liudmyla Denisova.

Read also the article NikVesti «On the verge of destruction: How the protected Kinburn spit suffers from the actions of the occupiers».