This week, our Ranger Video series takes us to Ukraine, to the rangers of the Desniansko-Starohutskyi National Nature Park (NNP) as one of our newest members. It is obvious what characterises their everyday life: Chief Ranger Denys Artemenko reports on how the war and its consequences top the conservation work of the 2023 IUCN WCPA Ranger Award-winning team.
As the Ranger Award presentation states, the rangers and other team members of the protected area on the northern border with Russia “continued to perform their duties with selfless dedication in the face of war. During a month of occupation, they established the Park as a humanitarian hub, helping local residents. Following liberation, they have resumed operations in the face of constant danger, of shelling of their park infrastructure and of new threats to the Park.”
Watch this video to see how they continue to do so today:
One of many challenges: evacuation of protected area property
Having overcome difficult financial, material, social, legal and administrative challenges to achieve a high level of protection for the park’s biodiversity-rich wetlands for more than 20 years of existence, they now have to protect their strong material and technical base from further destruction. Of five park buildings for administration, recreation and environmental education as well as conservation research, only one has survived since the war and the central office is constantly affected from shelling.
That is why employees have moved to places many kilometers away from the border and the rangers are evacuating the park property to safer places. At least whenever their work against poaching and for nature conservation allows them to do so. Because nothing less is at stake than maintaining the high level of protection for the park’s species-rich wetlands and grasslands as an important refuge for thousands of migratory geese and many other species.
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