At 11:22 p.m. one evening, journalist Iryna Fedoriv received a call on her mobile phone.
“You are covering the wrong topic,” an unknown voice told her on Sept. 20. “Drop it. You are blocking the road for people who have multi-million interests.”
It was a topic
that Fedoriv, a journalist at the STB Channel, was investigating for the last
four years. It concerned 4,000 hectares of the Bilychansky Forest in northwestern
Kyiv and the risk that it could be chopped down so that developers could build
there. The value of this massive plot of land, just near the city but quiet
and surrounded by the privacy that forests bring, has been estimated by
activists at $2 billion. The fight of activists and journalists to protect the
forest has proven tough and dangerous.
“I know you
have a lot of influential friends and acquaintances but they won’t be always
with you and your family,” the unknown man continued. “I hope you will sleep
well tonight.”
The next
day, Fedoriv wrote about this incident in her blog on the Ukrainska Pravda news
portal: “The tone and content of the conversation left me in no doubt that it
was a real threat to the life and health of my family and me.”
On Sept. 25,
police launched a criminal case. Journalists, public activists and residents later
that day launched a protest near President Viktor Yanukovych’s office demanding
protection for Fedoriv and the forest. Fedoriv and her family were swiftly put
in hiding, under the protection of guards.
The group
of 30 people protestors who raised attention to the issue by protesting at the
presidential administration building chanted: “Hands away from Bilychansky
Forest!”, “No threats against journalists” and “President – signature.” They
asked Yanukovych to sign a decree which will protect the forest as a national
park and passed on 10,000 signatures of people who supported this idea.
“It is
Viktor Yanukovych who can solve two problems with the stroke of one pen,” said Olha
Chervakova, also a journalist at STB. “He can solve the safety problem for Iryna
Fedoriv and he can stop destruction of a forest that is being divided into
parts, illegally handed onto private hands.”
Located in
Kyiv’s Sviatoshynsky district, Bilychansky Forest has since 1956 been used by
Kyiv utility company Sviatoshynske Lisoparkove Hospodarstvo. Inside this forest
there is a small town, Kotsiubynske, which belongs to Irpin Kyiv Oblast.
Though the boundaries
between Kyiv and Kotsiubynske are not clearly set, authorities of Kotsiubynske
with a help of Kyiv Oblast officials changed the status of 4,000 hectares of the
forest and began transferring it into private property hands around 2008,
activists say.
In 2008, authorities
of Kotsiubynske transferred 75 hectares of the forest to private individuals,
including deputies of Kotsiubynske council and surrogates. In 2010, local
authorities transferred more than 700 hectares of the forest into private and
communal property.
Activists
say that buildings have been already built and forest has been cut down in some
land plots, despite a moratorium on cutting trees in Kyiv. This process was
accompanied by public protests, law suits and police investigations. Yanukovych
has failed to deliver on previous public promise that a single tree won’t be cut down in this forest.
Fedoriv, a resident
of Kotsiubynske, was one of the first journalists who raised attention to the
issue. After being voted in as a deputy in Kotsiubynske’s council, she stepped
up the fight. She said that both private businessmen and local authorities may
stand behind a threat against her and behind the land scam.
“Authorities
of Kyiv Oblast and Kotsuibynske council are doing everything they can in order give
the land to developers,” Fedoriv said.
Anatoly
Prysiazhniuk, head of the Kyiv Oblast State Administration, said such claims
are baseless.
“Two months
ago we adopted a request to the president to make the territory of the forest a
nature reserve. And believe me, for two years and a half that I have occupied
this position in Kyiv Oblast, I did not sign any single document on land
allocation involving this forest.”
Activists remain
suspicious, and point to the forest as a rare public place of rest for citizens
that needs to be preserved, not cut down.
“This
forest is a part of so called green circle around Kyiv. It is the lungs of
Kyiv,” said Veronika Aheeva, head of public committee for saving Bilychansky
Forest.
“Most
winds in Kyiv blow from northwest [from the forest] and bring fresh air to the
city,” she added.
