Support of Democracy in the Ukraine
End: Novermber 2009
In the
framework of DAAD programme “Support of Democracy in the Ukraine”, the
Division of Resource Economics is going to organise a Workshop
“Developing multi-level and decentralized implementation capacity for
natural resource management and environmental policies: A contribution
to polycentric governance in an emerging democracy”. Ukraine is one of
the former socialist countries which in 1990 experienced the break up
of the Soviet Union followed by the radical institutional change. The
transition from autocracy required replacement of Soviet centrally
planned and implemented practices. Instead, new institutions were to be
introduced in all spheres of human activities, which would be based on
democratic principles of participation. Environment and natural
resources is a sphere which in particular experienced the impacts of
Soviet centrally planning regime. With independence Ukraine inherited a
number of environmental problems and significant degradation of vital
natural resources such as water and soil. New environmental policies
were introduced, which were oriented towards the European environmental
standards. However, almost twenty years after transition, the
enforcement of these policies still remains centralized. The local
population in rural areas is not recognised as a primary user of
natural resources and an important actor in the implementation of
environmental policies. General ignorance of rural participation in
environmental and natural resource management results in continuing
environmental problems and resource degradation in spite of all efforts
on the political level. The workshop intends to demonstrate the need
for democratic principles of rural participation in implementation of
environmental policies, and discuss the potential for decentralized
governance of natural resources with the senior and young scientists of
the partner universities, and representatives of the Ministry of the
Environment of Ukraine. The objectives of the workshop are:
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To learn what is natural resource regime and its types;
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To consider about natural resource management under different political regimes;
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To look at the impacts of political changes on the management of natural resources on the example of Poland;
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To analyse the current natural resource management and environmental policies in the Ukraine and their development within the last decade;
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To discuss the opportunities for the Ukrainian natural resource management and environmental policies to adapt to the political uncertainty, and the role of rural participation in their implementation.
Researcher: M.Sc. Melf-Hinrich Ehlers, M.Sc. Nataliya Stupak,
Project Partners: National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine; Institute for Agricultural and Forest Environment, Polish Academy of Sciences
Lead: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Konrad Hagedorn
Funding: DAAD
