\nINVENTORY NOT DONE \n \nAt the last meeting of the executive committee of the Lutsk City Council, journalists had to hear a reproach. Reporting on the work of the nature management and environmental protection department of the city executive committee, acting head of the department Oksana Tarabaniuk remarked: there are constant attacks from the press and the public that too many green spaces are being removed in the city. And too little attention is paid to how many are being planted. \n \nProbably no one can say the exact number of green spaces in the city. Such data simply does not exist today. A proper inventory of green spaces has still not been carried out in Lutsk. Environmentalists operate only with data from 2000, according to which the total area of plantings on the city territory was 1,935 hectares. The main part of the green spaces is concentrated near schools, hospitals, and kindergartens. They are located behind fences and are territory for special purpose, not for public use. In terms of the area of green zones for public use (8.8 sq.m per resident), Lutsk ranked only 14th in Ukraine among regional centers... \n \nAt the same time, Oksana Vitaliivna admits, the count carried out in 2000 is not a full-fledged inventory. It was conducted by employees of the "Flora-Service" enterprise together with the housing and communal services administration. They went through the microdistricts and counted the total number of trees. Whereas a proper inventory requires that not only the quantity be counted, but also the trunk diameters, the distance between them, and the replacement value of trees in the event of their removal. \n \nAccording to current legislation, only employees of the BTI or a licensed organization have the right to conduct an inventory. For example, in Lviv it was carried out by students of the forestry university. Our universities do not have such licenses, so the city is unable to use the alternative option. Although according to existing regulatory documents, an inventory of green spaces must be conducted once every 5 years. According to BTI calculations, this would require about 150 thousand hryvnias in Lutsk. However, the necessary amount was not included in the city budget for the current year. \n \n \nTHEY CANNOT PROVE IT WITH NUMBERS \n \nCalculating the balance of removed and planted trees under these conditions turned out to be an impossible task. The executive committee claims that definitely more green spaces are being created than removed, but they cannot prove this with numbers. Counts of how many trees, bushes, and flowers have been planted are being kept. However, there is no current reporting on how many of them take root. And as for removal, only approximate figures are cited here at all. \n \nAccording to official information from the head of the Housing and Communal Services Administration of the Lutsk City Executive Committee, Tetiana Semeniuk, during 2005, at the expense of the city budget, 127 emergency trees and trees that had lost their decorative value were removed. However, this does not take into account how many are removed by private applicants. According to Oksana Tarabaniuk, this year 39 orders were signed for the removal of trees — from several units to several dozen. According to approximate calculations, "by eye," about half a thousand have been removed since the beginning of the year. \n \nAccordingly, about 2 thousand saplings were planted in the areas of the streets and avenues of Voronikhina, Kravchuka, Koniakina, Karpenka-Karoho, Sahaidachnoho, Sobornosti, Voiviv-internationalistiv, Stanislavskoho, Bozhenka, the boulevard of Druzhby narodiv, Vidrodzhennia... In total, under the care of the department, about 3 thousand saplings are planted every year. Additional plantings take place twice a year during citywide environmental campaigns "Environmental Quarter," "Let's Make Our Native City Green," "Green Sprout of the Future"... \n \nHowever, it is difficult to call these additional plantings systematic: the housing and communal enterprises submit requests where they consider it necessary to plant — the department tries to satisfy their requests and provide saplings. If there were an inventory plan, they would know here several years in advance where, when, how much, and what to plant. And as it is, it is also impossible to calculate the exact number of plantings on the territories of commercial and large industrial enterprises. Businesspeople do not allow environmentalists onto their territory, hiding behind the law on property. \n \n \nCOMPENSATION FOR REMOVAL — 9 THOUSAND \n \nThe mechanism for calculating the replacement value of green spaces also needs revision. Today it is carried out according to documents dated back to 1995, where the calculations are given in karbovanets. Converted into hryvnias, the result is negligible — for the removal of a tree of average productivity, one must pay within 100 hryvnias. In European cities, for example Vienna, the removal of such a tree costs about 1,000 euros. Under the current calculations, revenues to the city budget from tree removal for the entire past year amounted to... 9,181 hryvnias. \n \nOn such issues, the municipality should adopt its own regulatory acts, however in Lutsk this right has still not been used. Although, Oksana Tarabaniuk assures, specialists of her department back in the spring of the current year developed a new draft decision of the executive committee "On Establishing the Amount of Compensation for Environmental Damage Caused by the Removal of Green Spaces within Lutsk." This document was prepared for approval by the executive committee back in June. But due to the excessive busyness of city hall officials, it "got lost" somewhere in the drawers... \n \nThe adoption of this regulatory act would make it possible to increase the amount of revenues from the removal of plantings by 3-4 times. According to the new calculations, the removal of trees on the city territory will cost from 350 hryvnias. Perhaps this will stop some from such an intention: if one has to pay up to a thousand hryvnias for cutting down a large tree, someone will think: I'd better fence it and preserve it... \n \nAND AGAIN — THE ABSENCE OF A GENERAL PLAN \n \nA "non-typical situation" has developed with the renewal of the green zone in the central park of culture and recreation named after Lesia Ukrainka. The park's humid climate, high groundwater level, and floods have led to the fact that practically all the poplars once mass-planted here have rotted roots. These tree species need to be replaced with more water-resistant ones. This is exactly what explains the total clearing of the park, which will continue this autumn. This causes a rather ambiguous reaction from Lutsk residents, and to a large extent their complaints are justified. The "tree cutters" did not meet the deadlines and before the start of the vegetation period did not remove the timber from the park or uproot the stumps... \n\nAt present, the city mayor has "given the go-ahead" for the creation of a specialized unit in the park that will professionally care for trees, prune bushes, and sow grass. So that the park is truly a park and not a forest park. However, this is not enough. The park urgently needs land reclamation work. The corresponding project, they claim in the nature management department, has been developed by them, but to implement it, one and a half million hryvnias are needed. \n\nUltimately, all conversations of specialists on the city's landscaping come down to one thing: as long as there is no general plan for the city's development in the city hall, there will be no planned landscaping either. The general plan will clearly stipulate where new buildings will be constructed and microdistricts will be laid out. Accordingly, places must be allocated near them for the creation of "green zones" and the establishment of squares, and then these works can be planned in advance. \n\nThen there will also be no situations similar to the one we observe in the Green Party square on Koniakina Street. Several years ago, a square was solemnly established here, and now trading kiosks are "popping up." Because the official status of this territory has not been determined, and even "constant attacks by the press" will not prevent this... \n \n Oleksandr PYROZHYK