THE DRAMATIC IMPACT OF ILLEGAL AMBER MINING IN UKRAINE’S WILD WEST

A CHAOTIC SCENE IN THE UKRAINE HAS MINERS PITTED AGAINST EACH OTHER AND THE GOVERNMENT, OFTEN WITH DEADLY CONSEQUENCES AND SIGNIFICANT ENVIRONMENTAL HARM.

The deep scars of recent amber mining can be seen in Dubrovytsya, Ukraine, despite government restrictions on the practice.

And for good reason—the town sits in the heart of Ukraine’s Wild West—the thousands of acres of ravaged pine and birch forests whose sandy soils hide millions of dollars in amber. As in other gold rushes, violence has followed the scramble for the semiprecious gemstone, with gangs fightingover lucrative pits and claims rife that corrupt government officials are battling for territory and control. On January 15, assailants armed with machine guns and grenades attacked young men in a coffee shop in the town of Olevsk, killing one and seriously wounding around a dozen others. Pictures from the scene show blood and handguns splashed across the snow.

“This is a really major environmental issue,” said Ostap Semerak, Ukraine’s minister of ecology and natural resources. “Politicians now have to choose between money today and the protection of the environment,” he said in an interview this summer, “and politicians often make environmentally immature decisions.”

It is not clear how many thousands of hectares of land have been destroyed by the illegal mining of amber. And the minister acknowledged that the problem is multifaceted and will not be solved overnight.

“Amber is really a very serious, complex problem, not only in the context of ecology,” Semerak said in a November interview. “There are at least four components—environmental, criminal, social, and economic” that are closely entwined.

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/illegal-amber-mining-ukraine/

What Should We Do

We are seeking funding in the amount of $ 30,000 to prevent an environmental disaster. Planting destroid parts of forest by trees.

We consider the prevention of environmental catastrophe a worthy goal.