The Lviv regional council called for stricter penalties for off-road driving in the Carpathian Mountains.

The Lviv regional council, at a meeting on October 20, called for increased accountability for off-road driving and for the legal regulation of vehicle use on the territory of Ukraine's natural reserves.

Deputies of the regional council have addressed the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on environmental policy and natural resource management, the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine, and the regional councils of the Carpathian region. In their appeal, they emphasized that off-road driving in mountainous and forest protected areas is becoming increasingly common and is taking on the characteristics of a systematic disregard for the environmental protection regime, the rights of local communities, and the interests of the state in preserving natural heritage.

To combat illegal logging in the Poltava region, deputies have proposed two mechanisms for responding: automatic detection of violations and improvements to the procedure for detecting violations on-site. For automatic detection, comprehensive changes to the legislation are needed, which will define the procedure for verifying evidence, identifying responsible parties, and issuing decisions by officials of the State Environmental Inspection of Ukraine.

Regional representatives are calling on the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada and the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine to initiate the preparation of appropriate legislative changes. They are also asking the Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, and Zakarpattia regional councils to support this initiative. The deputies emphasized that protecting the Carpathian region is a shared responsibility of the state, parliament, government, environmental protection agencies, and the regional councils of the Carpathian region.