An Open Letter from the Ukrainian Ecological Organization to the organisers and sponsors of the Euro 2012 European Football Championship

Several years of preparation for the Euro 2012 Football Championship have lead to dramatic environmental decline of the city. For example, Kharkiv Euro Preparation Programme (General Infrastructure Arrangement - look http: http://www.greenkit.net/Members/Pe4eneg/Zastroyki/Plan__k_Evro.pdf) provided for renovation of the main motorways of the ‘Euro 2012 Route’, namely roadway replacement for Moskovskiy Prospekt Ave. as well as reconstruction of Prospekt Gagarina Ave. and Poltavskiy Shlyakh St.

In order to improve the traffic flow from the airport to the ‘Metallist’ stadium, it was planned to broaden Prospekt Gagarina Ave. to six traffic lanes. The two additional lanes were supplied at the cost of destruction of a tree alley in the middle of the avenue.

In fact such broadening of the motorway cannot improve the traffic situation: Prospekt Gagarina Ave. is crossed by a railroad junction with the road under this junction left untouched. This bottleneck will inevitably produce traffic jams.

In June 2011 in order to construct an additional transport terminal as per requirements of UEFA, a lime alley on Poltavskiy Shlyakh St. has been destroyed. Having understood that such an inhumane action would cause a disturbance among the local population, the contractors turned to unprecedented measures: 20 live and blooming lime trees were enclosed with a high fence and chopped down overnight with no comments provided.

Kharkiv Euro Preparation Programme did not provide for construction of a road via Gorky Park. Despite, city officials had stated that this project was vital for the football championship conduction on multiple occasions. In summer 2010 the road was constructed with 1500 trees being cut down in process. This construction has been performed despite mass protesting of the townsfolk.

The new road forms a T-junction with the city main street, regularly spawning traffic jams.

Nearly every ‘reconstruction’, provided for by the Football Championship Preparation Programme, has eventually turned into destruction of the community landscape. Euro 2012 cost Kharkiv over 1500 trees in Gorky Park in summer 2010, over 900 trees along Prospekt Gagarina Ave. in spring 2011, and 50 trees along Poltavskiy Shlyakh St. in July 2011. The city council plans to cut 300 trees more along Moskovskiy Prospekt Ave. in 2012, also as per the Football Championship Preparation Programme. In other words, one of the official results of the city preparation for the football championship is 3000 cut-down trees.

None of the aforementioned cutovers was preceded by a compulsory assessment of their ecological impact, all of them involved law violations and complete disregard of the popular verdict.

It is worth mentioning that suspended particles are one the most harmful substances in the Kharkiv atmosphere. Their concentration, depending on the season, exceeds normal 4 to 5 times. Such pollution causes respiratory diseases and possesses carcinogenic properties.

Protection of the population from the negative impact of dust lies, first of all, in creation of the ‘green shield’, i.e. community landscape. Kharkiv preparation for Euro 2012 has, on the one hand, ruined the ‘green shield’ of the city and, on the other hand, contributed to traffic jams. Both of these factors will lead to the increase of the general gas contamination of the city.

Hotel construction within the city’s recreational forest for the sake of Euro 2012 will not lessen the gas contamination of the city too. For example, building a 90-room hotel in Batumskaya St. within the city’s recreational forest has been endorsed according to the plan of preparation for Euro 2012. According to the local mass media, the area of 25 hectares of forest has been assigned for the construction of this hotel. Moreover, this single hotel will somehow ‘turn into’ ‘15 single-entrance three-storey buildings… for apartments’. This will also lead to cutting down several hundred trees.

Kharkiv officials report fulfilling all requirements stated by UEFA, concerning city’s infrastructure preparation for Euro 2012 European Football Championship. However these reports do not inform of the city landscaping at all. Does it mean that UEFA’s requirements do not have an ecological component? However, besides, UEFA declares that it takes part in environmental protection and the struggle against climate change.

Seeing the negative example of Kharkiv we can state that UEFA management is interested only in the preparation of the infrastructure for the Championship. However, the honourable football association turns a blind eye to the noncompliances accompanying construction and harming city’s environment. We state that UEFA which had always stood for the healthy life-style, has, in fact, contributed to worsening the quality of the environment of Kharkiv and exterminating green areas of the city.

We express our disagreement with such an ‘environment-unfriendly’ policy of UEFA and demand reconsideration of the preparation terms for the countries receiving the Championship. We demand looking into the ecological issue of the preparation for the Championship and toughening the requirements for its fulfillment. In case of violation of the ecological issue, the Football Association must react immediately and demand interruption of anti-ecological job.

We call UEFA to take Kharkiv negative experience into account and do their best not to make preparations for the following Championships the reason of ruining the environment of the receiving cities. Otherwise, we reserve the right to call the general public for sabotaging UEFA and carry out acts of protest.

Fotos of Prospekt Gagarina Ave and a road via Gorky Park
"before" & "after"

Sergey Shaparenko,

the President of the Council of the Environmental Group "Pechenigy"

tehhishek[at]gmaіl.com