The State Environmental Inspection secured a reimbursement of 5 million hryvnias from the Dubrovytsia City Council.

“This concerns the application of the norms of part 2 of Article 107 of the Forest Code of Ukraine regarding the recovery from local self-government bodies for damage caused to forests not allocated for use, in cases where the individuals responsible for this damage have not been identified,” says the head of the DEI of the Polissya region, Yevhen Medvedovskyi. “This is already the second court case where compensation for damages resulting from illegal logging detected by the Inspection on the territory of a local self-government body becomes the obligation of that very body. In the spring of 2024, the DEI of the Polissya region won a lawsuit in the appellate court, and the court's decision obliged the Rakytne village council to pay over 2.9 million UAH in damages. Thanks to this precedent, a foundation has been established, which has become the basis for the Inspection, together with the Specialized Environmental Prosecutor's Office of the Prosecutor General's Office, to represent the interests of the state in cases involving even larger amounts of damage, seeking recovery of the harm inflicted on the state budget.”

The logging of 840 trees of various species, carried out by unidentified individuals on forest management land, which has become the subject of the current court dispute, was discovered in March 2024.

Since the Dubrovytsia City Council did not voluntarily compensate the damage caused to the state amounting to over 4.9 million UAH, the case was referred to court.

Rivnenshchyna is not the only region where instances of applying the norms of legislation to recover damages from local self-government bodies for harm caused to forests not allocated for use have been recorded. A lawsuit from the DEI of the Polissya region for the forced recovery of almost 1.8 million UAH in damages caused by illegal logging on community land is already under consideration by the Economic Court of the Zhytomyr region against the Pulyn village council of the Zhytomyr district.

“The court victories are our joint success with the Specialized Environmental Prosecutor's Office of the Prosecutor General's Office on the environmental front in the issue of preserving Ukraine's forests and a stimulus for local self-government bodies across Ukraine to properly fulfill their delegated powers regarding the control over the use and protection of natural resources, and the reproduction of forests,” notes Yevhen Medvedovskyi.