GC Mission to Carpathian National Park, Far West Ukraine

This month, Global Conservation was invited to deploy Global Park Defense to combat wildlife poaching and illegal logging in Carpathian National Park in the Far West of Ukraine. Global Conservation’s Executive Director Jeff Morgan met with Park Director and Ranger teams to formulate a plan for deploying Global Park Defense to achieve ‘No Cut, No Kill’ forest and wildlife protection.

After reviewing current threats and challenges facing Carpathian National Park, both parties agreed to begin a Global Park Defense program focusing on using Cellular Trailcams and SMART Ranger Patrols, and establishing a Command Center in the park headquarters based in Yaremchi, Ivano-Frankivsk province.

Park authorities and Global Conservation will work to make Carpathian National Park a model for the entire network of protected areas harboring the most wildlife and virgin forests in the country.

Carpathian National Park is one of the most valuable natural treasures of Ukraine, and the namesake for the entire chain of 8 protected areas in the West of Ukraine scattered throughout the Carpathian mountain ranger.

Carpathian National Park was the first national park to be created in Ukraine and remains one of the biggest, covering over 50,000 hectares, or 500 square kilometers. Unlike national parks in the United States, over 25,000 people live in 12 towns and villages within the park, making conservation of wildlife and forests even more challenging.

Carpathian National Park contains many of the last remnant populations of endangered wildlife species that once roamed the European continent. Wildlife includes brown bear, wolf, lynx and 400 unique species of mammals including the Carpathian chamois. 60% of Europe’s last brown bear population live in the Carpathian Mountains.

Today, Carpathian National Park is a critical core for the Carpathian UNESCO World Heritage site which includes Ukraine, Romania and Slovakia, all facing ongoing illegal logging and wildlife poaching.

The Carpathian Mountains contain the last intact primeval forests of Europe.

Despite government efforts over the past decade to protect the last intact forests and wildlife habitats of Ukrainian Carpathian UNESCO World Heritage, we have lost over 20% of the Carpathian forests in Ukraine in the past ten years, and almost all wildlife are facing extinction due to unregulated hunting and wildlife poaching.

A Critical Role for Global Conservation

Based on learning about our current GC Project at Borjomi National Park in the Republic of Georgia, Global Conservation has been asked by Carpathian National Park and Ukraine’s Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources to consult on park and wildlife protection systems.

Global Park Defense provides 24/7 surveillance of all roads, trails and rivers providing access to the park.

Global Park Defense enables under-resourced park rangers and enforcement inspectors to effectively cover vast areas of rugged mountains and to make limited numbers of park rangers more effective by using targeted patrolling rather than random patrolling. Targeted patrolling is based on 24/7 surveillance and community intelligence gathering on illegal activities focusing on the highest threat areas.

Global Conservation evaluated cellular service in and around the park to support essential Cellular Trailcams for 24/7 surveillance of roads and trails focused park rangers on real threats in real time from actual intruders with weapons and logging equipment.

By ramping up coverage of real-time surveillance within Carpathian National Park rangers can rapidly respond deep into mountainous and heavily forested areas.

Global Conservation recommended organizing the park into sectors with the ability to rapidly respond to Cellular Trailcam alerts showing hunters and loggers, and creating a model for the 7 other protected areas facing destructive illegal logging and wildlife poaching in Carpathian Ukraine.

Global Conservation will provide Cellular Trailcams, systems and training, combined with operations funding and support for rangers to rapidly respond to illegal intruders in the park.

Global Conservation has five goals in supporting Global Park Defense in Carpathian National Park:

1. Deployment of Global Park Defense systems and communications for all Park Rangers.

2. Achieving ‘No Cut, No Kill’ within the park by increasing arrests and fines.

3. Increasing the size of Carpathina National Park to protect adjacent high biodiversity areas by 30-50%.

4. Improving core wildlife populations by 2-3 times for endangered indicator species in 5 years.

5. Training of Park Rangers on Global Park Defense technologies, systems and training for rapid response and targeted patrolling.

Despite decimated wildlife populations, trophy hunting is still occuring in the Carpathian range.

Threats to Carpathian National Park

Primary threats include illegal logging and wildlife poaching, as well as violence to NGOs and park employees.

Unauthorized large-scale logging in remote areas of the Carpathian mountains also are removing the last old growth forests. For more background on illegal logging in the Carparthians, see this investigative report - "I saw fear and terror on the road to exposing dirty secret Ukraine's loggers are trying to hide from the rest of Europe" by ITV.

In 2018, Forest Watch staff were attacked while investigating illegal logging in Ukrainian Carpathians. The 15 assailants are believed to be from the village of Stuzhytsia adjacent to a suspected illegal logging site. The attack occurred at the end of a Forest Watch field visit to investigate more closely a confirmed illegal logging site and suspected illegal activities in an adjacent UNESCO World Heritage primeval forest. This is not the first attack on the Forest Watch team in the Ukrainian Carpathians. Last autumn about 30 people including employees of the Vyzhnytsia National Nature Park attempted to prevent Forest Watch volunteers from entering the park territory.

Illegal logging and wildlife trade threaten the Carpathian National Park’s biodiversity and people’s livelihoods despite European and international environmental legislation. Illegal logging of timber continues to destroy Europe’s last remaining virgin forests in Ukraine, a considerable part protected as UNESCO World Heritage. While estimates vary across the region, satellite images and ground reports highlight illegal logging as one the most significant threats to sustainability.

“The looting of these natural resources undermines development and deprives governments of the money they need to promote jobs, education and health services”, said Erik Solheim, Head of UN Environment. “These resources should rather be a solid foundation for future generations”, he added.

“Europe’s last remaining old-growth forests and their biodiversity are disappearing at alarming rates”, said Marco Lambertini, Director General, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) International.

Park Rangers in the Carpathians face tremendous challenges in their work:

• Low budgets and personnel to cover large areas

• Extensive criminal syndicates involved in illegal logging and wildlife poaching

• Absence / low quality of equipment, infrastructure and transportation

• Low level of training of many nature protected areas personnel

On the positive side, a logging moratorium was placed on all old growth forests of the Carpathian mountains in Ukraine, many residing within the national park. In order to protect these remote and disconnected last old growth forest areas, park authorities realize they urgently need strong park and wildlife protection systems to support the work hard of park rangers and management to uphold enforcement and protection laws, facing many entrenched syndicates and corrupt officials.

About Carpathian UNESCO World Heritage

The Carpathian Mountains are one of Europe’s largest mountain ranges, extending over 1,500 kilometrers across Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine. They form a green backbone between Central and Eastern Europe, sustaining the continent’s largest remaining tracts of primeval forest and harboring nearly half of its large carnivores.

Brown Bears are omnivorous; they eat fruit – blueberries and raspberries, can dig up roots and tubers, and also larva, insects, frogs, snakes, various rodents and winter carcasses stuck in the snow or killed by other predators.

Carpathian National Park counts 44 species of fauna, including 11 species on the European Red List - wolf, brown bear, forest cat, golden eagle, badger, chamoix, otter, lynx and others. Less known species include Carpathian and Alpine newts, spotted salamander, copperhead, brown long-eared bat, hazel dormouse, corncrake, Burgundy snail black stork, golden eagle, hen harrier, peregrine, grouse, three-toed woodpecker, and others.

Indicator Species - Estimated Wildlife Populations

Carpathian National Park Only

Brown Bear < 80

Wolf < 60

Lynx < 40

Golden Eagle < 50

Red Deer < 100

*2016 Estimates (unaudited)