Steppe protected areas on the territory of Ukraine in the context of the armed conflict in the Donbas region and Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula

Abstract

We are pleased to present the new issue of the EDGG Bulletin, which comprises the invitation for the next EDGG Field Workshop in the Central Apennine mountains, in Italy. EDGG Research Expeditions/Field Workshops have been conducted annually since 2009, and have contributed to the development of a large body of standardized data. This issue includes a call for data to be added to this dataset, which would be used for analyses of biodiversity patterns and their drivers across biogeographical gradients. The Bulletin also includes the Minutes of the General Assembly of the EDGG, which took place during the EGC in Sighisoara in September 2016. One of the most important contributions in this issue is a paper about the impact of military conflicts on the steppe protected areas of Ukraine. This detailed analysis warns the international scientific community about the negative impacts on all steppe protected areas in Ukraine caused by military operations or exercises and other factors stemming from the unstable political situation in the country. But there is also room for hope, as we also include two short contributions looking on the bright side. The first one informs us about a new project to support the Steppe national nature parks of Ukraine, and the second about the success in the Ukrainian Сourt of the Appeal to stop the destruction of the Tarutyns'kyj steppe. In this issue we want to relaunch the section devoted to the recent publications of our members. This section is open to all EDGG members, so once more we want to invite all of you to send us your grassland-related papers, so that they can be included in this section in the future issues. Finally, we would like to take the opportunity again to emphasize that the Bulletin welcomes submissions of scientific articles (in the form of Research papers, Forum papers, Reviews or Reports). While we do not provide peer-review, we do offer linguistic editing after acceptance, and your paper will achieve high visibility because the Bulletin is open access and distributed to more than 1000 grassland specialists throughout the world. You can find the author guidelines from the EDGG homepage. We hope that reading the Bulletin will inspire you to new ideas and discoveries that, in turn, will find their place on the pages of future issues. We wish you a Happy New Year, Anna Kuzemko, Idoia Biurrun & the Editorial Board Content Eurasian Dry Grassland Group 2 Invitation to the 10 th EDGG F i e l d W o r k s h o p "Biodiversity patterns across a precipitation gradient in the Central Apennine mountains" 3-12 Minutes of the General Assembly 2016 13-14 Vasyliuk, O. et al. Steppe protected areas on the territory of Ukraine in the context of the armed conflict in the Donbas region and Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula 15-23 Short contributions 24-27 Book reviews 28-32 Recent publications of our members 33-34 Forthcoming events 35 Imprint 36 At the top:

¿Son compatibles la conservación de plantas y las guerras? El papel de las áreas en disputa, las áreas militares y las reliquias militares como reservas naturales

“…Also within the European continent there is an example of a recent conflict that is still going on, the War in Eastern Ukraine (2014-present). This war has affected significant percentages of both forests and steppes within the region-including those located on nature reserves, by means of direct effects (explosions and fires, and damage due to the passage of heavy military machinery and construction of fortifications and trenches) or indirectly by dismantling nature reserves administration (Vasyliuk et al, 2017). A number of additional cases can be found in the Enzler (2006) webpage about the environmental effects of wars and incidents leading to war that have occurred in the 20th and 21st century.…”

The Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) in 2016–2017

“…Under the direction of Editor-in-Chief Anna Kuzemko, Deputy Editor-in-Chief Idoia Biurrun and the Editorial Board, the Bulletin now goes beyond announcements and reports of EDGG activities and short communications by our members and also regularly publishes full articles in the categories "Research paper", "Forum paper", "Review" and "Report", all of which receive a digital object identifier (DOI) to make them easily retrievable from literature databases, such as ResearchGate. Notable articles of the reporting period include the methodological paper on the EDGG multiscale sampling (Dengler et al 2016b), an overview of mean and maximum richness values found in dry grasslands of different regions at different grain sizes (Dengler et al 2016a) and a forum paper reflecting on the impact of armed conflicts on protected steppe areas in Ukraine (Vasyliuk et al 2016).…”

Invitation to contribute to the vegetation-plot databases of EDGG

“…In EDGG Bulletin 33, we reported on the imminent threat of ploughing to the landscape reserve "Tarutyns'kyj Steppe" in Ukraine (Odesa Oblast) at the end of 2016 (Vasyliuk et al 2017). Within a few days after the news emerged of ploughing at the Tarutyns'kyj Steppe, this turned into the major environmental topic of 2016 and has evolved into the largest environmental campaign in Ukraine for the entire year.…”