The Tuzlivsky Limany National Nature Park, located in southwestern Ukraine, faces a low level of environmental and social problems that remain unaddressed by the Ministry of Ecology. The park, which is a unique natural site, is under threat due to massive poaching, ecosystem degradation, and conflicts with local communities.
Despite numerous appeals from local communities, authorities, and activists, the park's problems continue to be ignored, which jeopardizes the preservation of this natural treasure of Ukraine.
The main problems of the Tuzlivski Limany Park:
1. Poaching and illegal fishing: The lack of proper control by the national park management contributes to the growth of poaching in the park. Illegal fishing and hunting create significant pressure on the populations of rare and endangered species. The police detect poachers in the national park almost every month, but the problem is not systematically solved - the management justifies this by demand.
2. Water supply problems: neighboring communities claim that the national park administration ignores the problem of regulated water exchange of the estuaries with the Black Sea, which is why the protected estuaries are on the verge of drying up.
3. Wastefulness and bloated staff: the annual budget of the national park reaches 6 million UAH, of which almost all the money, namely 97%, is spent on salaries for 45 employees. At the same time, such a bloated staff cannot cope with its main functions - the protection of the entrusted nature, as evidenced by massive facts of poaching.
4. Clashes with local residents over lands that are not defined in nature, and therefore lead to conflicts with the park's "neighbors." People complain that the national park management practices self-seizure of territories and prohibits locals from cultivating their plots.
5. “Eternal” temporary leadership: for almost 10 years, the Ministry of Ecology has been unable to hold a competition for the position of head of the national park, so two people are actually replacing each other in the position and managing the park in the status of temporarily acting.
We would like to add that the other day the Southern Office of the State Audit Service completed an audit of the financial and economic activities of the Tuzlovski Limany NPE. The report was sent to the management.
Meanwhile, local residents and authorities are calling on the Ministry of Ecology to take decisive action to preserve the “Tuzlivsky Estuaries”. They are demanding that monitoring of compliance with environmental legislation be strengthened, the ecosystem be preserved, and professional managers be appointed. The lack of reaction from the Ministry threatens to turn the “Tuzlivsky Estuaries” from a unique nature reserve into another ecological disaster zone.
