Currently, project documentation is being prepared for the implementation of the GEF-8 project ‘Resilient Ukrainian Forest Landscapes: Combating Land Degradation, Climate Change, and Economic Setbacks through Landscape-Level Forest Restoration’.
Specialists from the State Forest Resources Agency took part in a working meeting chaired by Deputy Minister of Economy, Environment and Agriculture Taras Vysotskyi. He noted that Ukraine has sufficient institutional and scientific capacity to prepare the necessary documentation: the Ukrainian Research Institute of Mountain Forestry named after P. S. Pasternak and the Ukrainian Research Institute of Forestry and Forest Melioration named after G. M. Vysotskyi have the necessary knowledge and expertise to carry out the relevant tasks.
One of the main directions of the project is the modernisation of the forest management system so that the forest restoration strategy is based on the results of new comprehensive surveys and laboratory analyses of soils, which comprehensively take into account modern forest growing conditions and current climate indicators. This requires a modern genetic and molecular laboratory, and the State Forest Resources Agency is already negotiating assistance for its creation.
The project’s objectives also include:
– developing policies, creating a favourable environment and providing training for forest landscape restoration;
– implementing restoration systems in different agroclimatic zones, including the creation of nurseries and selection centres;
– exploring green financing investment opportunities to scale up forest restoration.
The project, with a total cost of over $6 million, is scheduled to last five years. The implementing agency is the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).
