Ukrainian President Yanukovych’s son is going to plunder national parks in off-road rally

About 200 4WDs, including that of the Ukrainian President Yanukovych’s

son Victor Yanukovych Jr. are going to have an off-road rally in
Polissya and Rivne nature reserves as well as in Shatskiy national
park in Ukraine.

According to the Deputy Head of the National Environmental Center of
Ukraine Oleksiy Vasylyuk, the route of the rally will go through three
of Ukraine’s unique nature reserves.

“Two of them – Polissya and Rivne – have the status of untouchable
reserves which means that even people on foot are not supposed to walk
there.”

Mr. Vasylyuk pointed out that photos and videos of the past trophy
raids show that “heavy cars break and uproot trees and bushes, destroy
roads, exterminate valuable flora and fauna protected by the Ukrainian
legislation and international conventions.” Besides, the season of
animal reproduction is currently under way. Many countries introduce
“months of silence” for this season.

“We learned of the rally through Internet, got in touch with its
organizers and they told us that if we try to oppose it, the Reserve
Manager and his Deputy are going to lose their jobs. We tried to find
a compromise, e.g. have a reserve employee show them the most valuable
territories where they should not go, but they stopped picking up the
phone” – a source in one of the reserves told us.

MP Viktor Yanukovych Jr. who is an active participant of the rally,
believes that race “ins not only a stage in the sport development, but
is also a way to propagate new tourist destinations unknown to the
public and make an economic contribution to the regions though which
the rally is going to go. I am sure that all the rally participants
will come back to this wonderful Polissya region and bring their
friends.”

The National Environmental Center of Ukraine got in touch with the
organizers and asked them to change the route, to go around reserve
territories. However, “apart from brutal swearing into the telephone
we heard only that nobody was going to change the route.”

The rally “UkraineTrophy2011″ is planned to be held on July 2-8, 2011,
from Ukraine’s capital Kyiv to Shatski Ozera national park along
northern border with Belarus and will pass through 3 nature reserves.

Оriginal text in Ukrainian/Оригінал статті українською