Druzhba Park and two other sites: plans are afoot to expand the area of nature reserves in the Mykolaiv region

The Horizontal Oak in Druzhba Park. Archive photo by NikVesti

In the Mykolaiv region, the area of protected sites is one of the smallest in Ukraine. This year, there are plans to expand it by 190 hectares, partly thanks to Druzhba Park.

This was announced at a briefing by Dmytro Mats, deputy head of the Department of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration, according to NikVesti.

Dmytro Mats stated that despite the war and the fact that part of the region’s nature reserve areas are currently occupied, plans are in place to create three new such sites this year. Plans are in place to develop projects for the Druzhba park in Mykolaiv and two sites in the region: in the Mykolaiv district (Novoukrainskyi) and Starohorizhynskyi (Bashtanka district).

«We expect that the area of the nature reserve fund will increase by almost 190 hectares when these sites are established. Generally speaking, in terms of Ukraine as a whole, the area of protected sites in the Mykolaiv region is one of the lowest. Here, 3.19% of the territory is covered by nature reserve areas. If we increase this area, even by a hundredth or a tenth of a per cent per year, that is already significant progress in this matter,» noted Dmytro Mats.

As a reminder, in Mykolaiv in 2025, after many years of searching, documents were finally found confirming the creation of the «Druzhba» memorial park. Oleksandra Yefimenko, head of the Ecology Department of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration, explained that the «Druzhba» park in the Korabelnyi district had been designated by a decision of the regional council as far back as 1993. At that time, any construction, reconstruction or felling of greenery was prohibited in this area. However, the procedure for establishing the park was never completed, and from 2021 it had to be effectively started from scratch.