Wilderness in the Environmental Policy of the European Union

Abstract

The article explores the reasons, directions and stages of the wildlife conservation activities which is an important direction of European environmental policy. Author examines the essence of the concept “wilderness” which is used in the official documents of the European Union and EU member states. It has concluded that wilderness is understood as a territory regulated by natural processes, consisting of natural habitats and species, sufficient for the effective ecological functioning of natural processes; it is unchanged or slightly modified and does not undergo changes from the side people, settlements, and infrastructure; its landscape has not undergone any visual changes. The policy of the EU member states concerning the formation of the relevant legislation and practical steps for the creation of protected areas of wildlife are analyzed. It was found that unlike the USA, where in the late nineteenth century the protection of wildlife has stimulated the development of environmental policy, in European Union activities in this area began to develop in the last third of the twentieth century. It was seen as one of the directions of biodiversity conservation within the framework of the regional environmental protection policy. The author concluded that the peculiarity of the European wildlife protection model is the formation of strategic guidelines and development them by the member states in accordance with their national specifics. This leads to a variety of approaches to activities in this the protection of the wildlife. The main disadvantages of the Ukrainian legislation on wildlife conservation as well as problems for its development are revealed. The article state that at the moment, Ukraine has done the first step in the wildlife protection – in 2017, the Law on the protection of virgin forests was adopted. It is concluded that Ukraine’s move to European integration requires not only the adaptation of the national environmental legislation to EU legal norms but also the development of wildlife conservation activities as an important direction of environmental policy.