Die ökologische Situation in der Ukraine und Grundsätze einer ökologischen Landesentwicklungspolitik

Abstract

The marked deterioration of the state of the environment in the Uk raine in the course of the last twenty years and its increasingly negative affects on broad areas of the private and social life has lead to a close scientific connection between geography and ecology. In this context and at the same time as concrete, region-related examinations, theoretic studies have also been carried out. This lead to a differentiation and definition of a whole range of terms and research aspects, which will be elaborated on in the introductory phase. As a term with a particular importance for the characterisation of the geographic-ecological situation, the ecological safety will be given special, closer attention. The background for the widespread and deeply-rooted reduction in the ecological safety is formed by the large extent of population density, the high level of agricultural development, the intensive extraction of natural resources and rocks, the widespread employment of obsolete technology with high energy consumption and huge quantities of exhaust substances and the catastrophe from Chernobyl. The ecological situation is extremely critical -given conventional pollution- in the industrial areas of Krivoi Rog-Dnepropet rovsk, Donetsk, Lugansk-Lysytshansk and Cis-Carpathian, as well as in the agglomerations and/or urban centres of Kiev, Lvov (Lemberg), Kharkov, Zaporozhye, Odessa, Mariupol and Mikolayiv. In order to ensure improvements, it is necessary for the economy to be reformed, for fundamental technological changes to be made and for the social and intellectual recovery to be implemented. This design of life in the Ukrainian society to comply with ecological principles occurs at the same time and in the same contents as the international efforts for the long-term development of national economies.