On 21 September 2014, International charitable organization “Environment-People-Law” (EPL) and Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW) at the international symposium “Human Rights and Environment in a New Ukraine” held in Lviv urged the world community of environmental lawyers to make efforts to stop military aggression in eastern Ukraine and stop devastation of environment in the zone of military actions. Since that time the situation in eastern Ukraine has neither improved nor stabilized and is deteriorating every day, people die, the infrastructure and environment are ruined.
The situation needs immediate actions towards detection of new environmental problems caused by war, publicizing the information on hazard levels, localization of every problem and development of a detailed action plan for their elimination depending on their hazard levels and progress dynamics for each problem.
Ukraine needs assistance from international community in order to assess the damage to the environment and undertake restoration measures. Inventory of the damage to infrastructure and environment is the first step, which can be followed by works for restoration of the environment.
EPL and ELAW environmental experts have been working together to assess the damage caused to the environment by military actions in eastern Ukraine. The assessment results will become instruments of decision-making on the national and international levels and driving force for attracting attention of the world community to peace building for the sake of life and environment preservation.
