Ukrainian conservationist Bohdan Prots, 41, was awarded with the UK’s prestigious Whitley Award in May
The largely unexplored riverine forests of Ukraine’s Transcarpathia Region may soon begin benefiting from international conservationist efforts following the landmark bestowal of a prestigious conservation award to a Ukrainian who has spent years working with teams of scientists and top environmental organizations researching the rare habitat.
Bohdan Prots, 41, who was awarded with the UK’s Whitley Award in May for his work on uncovering Transcarpathia’s valuable riverine forests and wetlands, is a senior research scientist and supervisor at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
The Whitley Award has been awarded annually since 1994 by the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN), a UK-based charity that offers one of the largest nature conservation awards available and recognizes outstanding efforts by leading conservationists around the world.
WFN patron Princess Anne of England presented Prots with the award on May 10 at the Royal Geographical Society in London, with a list of 350-plus distinguished guests in attendance.
This achievement marks the first time a Ukrainian has won the award, which is worth over 30,000 British pounds (more than $60,000).
Among the conclusions drawn from Prots’ work is that Transcarpathia’s riverine forests are some of the last remaining of their kind in Central Europe and home to more than 350 endangered and rare plant and animal species.
Prots, who grew up swimming and playing in western Ukraine’s forests and wetlands, said that he decided to study ecology and conservation after witnessing the area’s destruction while in high school.
“I am here not just to draw your attention to our ancient riverside forests, our oxbow lakes and wild bogs, but to all of the Ukrainian Carpathians, with their bears, wolves, lynx, otters, bats and virgin habitats, all of which have started to suffer seriously from rapid economic growth,” Prots told the audience during his award acceptance speech.
“Ukraine has the best surviving riverine forests in Europe. The forests are of high biological importance but are much threatened as Ukraine develops,” a media release for WFN quoted Edward Whitley, Founder and Chairman of the organization, as saying.
“We owe it to future generations to try to conserve these last great forests, and Bohdan’s work is leading to a greater balance between development and habitat protection.”
In addition to Ukraine, Prots has conducted scientific research in several other countries, including Great Britain, Austria, Germany and South Korea.
He began a five-week pilot study in the Transcarpathian wetlands in 1997 with his partner and project leader, 57-year-old Dr. Anton Drescher, a conservation ecologist at the Institute of Botany, Karl-Franzens University of Graz in Austria. These initial expeditions uncovered several earlier unexplored habitats in Transcarpathia and Ukraine, as well as a species of orchid previously not known to exist in Ukraine.
Prots lacked funding to continue his work in the region until 2002, when the WWF-UK, a global conservation organization, agreed to allocate funds for the project.
Heading a team of 25 specialists, including botanists, zoologists, and soil experts, Prots conducted research from 2002 to 2006 on the Transcarpathian riverine forests and wetlands, concluding that the habitats were some of the last and largest of their kind and were home to hundreds of rare plants and animals.
The area researched by Prots has the largest ash-oak old-growth forests in Central Europe, aged at between 150 to 250 years old, and its ash trees are the biggest in the world, reaching heights of 46 meters and 153 centimeters in diameter.
Prots dubs the forests “jungles” due to the density and remarkable size of the trees. Riverine forests gain their nutrients when the area’s surrounding rivers flood, delivering a rich mixture of nutrients to the trees and plants. With the abundant water and nourishment supplied by the floods, the trees are able to grow closely together, like those in jungles, without having to compete with each other for nutrients.
According to a WWF article from April 2006 featuring Prot’s work, riverine forests are the most diverse of all European ecosystems, and also the most vulnerable, with only a few highly threatened areas remaining on the continent, the largest of which are in Transcarpathia.
Prots and his team members also made several other striking discoveries.
For instance, they discovered that 82 percent of Ukraine’s bat species live in Transcarpathia’s forests, that 50 to 60 percent of the forest area is a type considered to have high conservation value for Europe, and that more than 44 percent of the same region’s forests have disappeared over the last 100 years.
Prots envisions using the Whitley award money for several small-scale projects in the area, but his primary aims are to develop a sustainable model for the habitats and save them for future generations.
Prots plans to work with government authorities, local communities, businesses and NGOs to establish more protected areas, publish a model of sustainable development for the wetlands, and carry out restoration work and conservation activities, as well as initiate tourism development.
“The geographical location of these forests, close to the western border of the [former] Soviet Union, effectively restricted any large-scale investigation of their biodiversity and sustainable use,” said Prots.
As a consequence, the area wasn’t studied and valued, and presently has no conservation agenda.
The area also suffers heavily from excessive logging and massive river pollution, primarily from plastic bottles thrown into rivers by local communities. The forests are located on the Tisza, Borzhava, Latorytsya and Uzh rivers and their tributaries, which flow south and west through Hungary, into Europe’s second largest river, the Danube, and eventually drain into the Black Sea.
Prots believes that the establishment of a protected park will encourage investment in the area’s tourism industry, increase employment and support local craftsmen, as well as help reduce the risk of heavy floods caused by excessive logging and consequently aid in relieving poverty in the region.
Prots hopes to turn the idea into a bi- or even trilateral initiative, bringing together Hungary, Slovakia, and even Romania in the creation of a transnational park.
