Oleksii Marushchak

On top of the dire consequences of the war started by the Russian Federation against Ukraine for civilians, military and civilian infrastructure, the agro-industrial complex and other areas of life, there are negative impacts on wildlife as well. In addition to environmental pollution and direct negative impacts on biodiversity, there is a loss of much of the valuable biodiversity data collected by many biologists and staff from national parks and reserves due to the evacuation of these people. During the evacuation, they managed to save some of their work in the form of electronic data, field diaries, etc. In many cases, this is the result of a hasty evacuation. Data left in one format or another in the occupied territories is likely to be destroyed by the occupying forces during looting and shelling. Currently, 44% of Ukraine's reserves are under occupation and have already been partially affected by it. The number of scientists who have become IDPs reaches several dozens. However, the premises of reserves and national parks, which have traditionally been centers for the study of biodiversity in the south and east of Ukraine, were seized and looted, and as a result important information about nature accumulated in them was irrevocably destroyed.

The need to document and publish registrations of biodiversity (fungi, plants and animals) for the world scientific community in the form of databases is important for many reasons. Such studies, being relatively simple, allow us to track the registrations of rare species, and thus analyze the state of their populations within certain geographical units in a timely manner. Such data are indispensable for conducting research on geoinformation modeling of species distribution in order to more effectively preserve them. Due to their general availability, these data are important not only for researchers from Ukraine, but also for scientists from all over the world. Today, due to the war, tens and hundreds of thousands of such registrations representing years of field work by researchers may be lost forever.
Without this information, Ukraine will not be able to estimate the loss of environment, which is necessary to calculate the damage caused to our country and calculate the amount of reparations for the Russian aggressor. In other words––without information, such as that regarding rare species, from before the war––it will be impossible to establish that they disappeared after it.

One of the most well-known platforms for storing such data is the GBIF––Global Biodiversity Information Facility (https://www.gbif.org). The author of the project is one of five people in Ukraine who have been documenting and creating datasets for download on the GBIF platform (through the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group). Before the war, the published data numbered over 200,000 records.
The aim of the project is to mobilize and digitalize data on registrations of biodiversity in Ukraine from scientists and staff of nature reserves who became IDPs and who, despite terrible pressure from the occupying forces, managed to save at least some of their records. Diversifying this information and the uncertainty of the near future makes the risk of losing this vast array of data even more real, as these people are now thinking more about the survival of themselves and their families. The project therefore offers financial assistance to such people in creating datasets and their subsequent publication for the wider scientific community on the GBIF resource.
Our intention is to collect and publish at least 100,000 records of plant, animal and fungal species (including rare species) from Ukraine (especially its eastern and southern part), for which cooperation (surveys, joint work) with scientists who have migrated from the occupied territories will be established.