Ordinance No. 1024-r of the Cabinet of Ministers validating the Concept to combat land degradation and desertification.

Concept to combat land degradation and desertification is a nationwide multi-sectoral policy document aimed at the solution of the most serious challenges for the country’s sustainable development, causing significant environmental and socio-economic problems. The largest degradation processes are water and wind soil erosion (about 57 percent of the country’s territory), land flooding (about 12 percent), acidification (almost 18 percent), salinization and solonization of soils (more than 6 percent). According to various criteria, about 20 percent of Ukrainian land are polluted. Almost 23,000 landslides are recorded annually. As a result of abrasion, up to 60 percent of the coast of the Azov and Black Seas and 41 percent of the coastline of the Dnieper reservoirs are destroyed. More than 150,000 hectares of land have been disturbed as a result of mining and other activities. The number of underground and surface karst manifestations is about 27 thousand hectares of land. The problems of land degradation and desertification are exacerbated by the rapid pace of climate change, accompanied by rising average annual temperatures, recurrence and intensity of extreme weather events, including droughts, which have impact every two - three years on 10 to 30 percent of the country's territory, and every 10-12 years - 50 to 70 percent of the country’s total area. The level of poverty in rural areas, which traditionally depends more on the state of use and protection of land and other natural resources, during the last 10 years is 2-11 percent higher than the national average, leading to excessive exploitation of natural resources, their further depletion and degradation.
The scope of implementation of the Concept shall be to increase the effectiveness of the implementation of state policy to combat land degradation and desertification, setting priorities, strengthening institutional capacity and improved coordination of authorized bodies in the relevant field, as well as ensuring the implementation by Ukraine as a party of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, particularly in Africa, and international obligations. The Concept is expected to be implemented during 2015-2020.
The main ways to solve the problem shall be as follows: (a) improving the structure of land and areas of economic activity in order to form a balanced relationship between land and environmental security, in particular increase of the area of agricultural land of extensive use (hayfields, pastures), forests, protective forest belts and other protective plantations in accordance with scientifically sound indicators taking into account regional features and natural climatic conditions; reduction of arable land area due to erosion-hazardous, degraded, unproductive and technogenic contaminated agricultural lands, floodplains and coastal protection zones of waterbodies; creation of new and increase of existing protected areas; and creating conditions to ensure the formation of an ecological network; (b) ensuring the widespread introduction of environmentally sustainable technologies of land use, including those aimed at the development of special raw material zones and organic agricultural production; (c) improving economic mechanisms to stimulate landowners and land users to carry out ecologically balanced activities, preservation of soil and improvement of soil fertility; (d) improvement of the state system of environmental monitoring, including land (large-scale soil surveys and agro-chemical certification), forests and water, improvement of the functioning of state land cadastre, forest and water funds, implementation of land survey, developing relevant documentation in the field of land protection and forest management; (e) ensuring the proper functioning and improvement of early warning system and drought monitoring and hydrometeorological observation network; and (f) introduction of an integrated approach to land and other natural resources management, increase of coordination and efficiency.