On 29 September this year, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved a package of draft laws aimed at streamlining amber mining operations. The changes include, in particular, the abolition of procedures for additional approval of land permits by relevant regional councils and the sale of permits through open electronic auctions. It is also being considered to reduce taxes from 25 to 15% for those involved in the extraction of the raw material. \u201eWe want to create additional economic incentives for people who are ready to legalise their amber mining activities,\u201d announced the Minister of Energy and Environmental Protection, Oleksiy Orzhel.<\/p>\n
Government projects stand a chance of falling on fertile ground, especially since prospectors themselves have long been calling for changes so they wouldn't have to pay tribute and could be covered by legal protection. They have repeatedly organised road blocks to draw the authorities\u201e attention to the problem of illegal extraction, of which they feel not beneficiaries, but victims. \u201dMost of us are convinced that legalising amber extraction would make our lives much easier. Admittedly, we would have to pay taxes, but we wouldn't have to share our profits with the police, officials or the mafia. However, the state doesn't hear our demands, because making money off us, the diggers, simply benefits too many people. On top of that, those in Kyiv are trying to take our amber-bearing land away from us,\" one of them explained in an interview with the vesti.ua portal in July this year.<\/p>\n
The matter gathered pace following President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to Zhytomyr, where he announced that \u201eall individuals involved in the illegal mining of amber in Ukraine will be punished\u201d. The President also ordered the dismissal of, amongst others, police officers in 9 districts and the heads of the Security Service of Ukraine in the Rivne, Volyn and Zhytomyr oblasts due to their involvement in the illicit trade. Zelenskyy further urged the Cabinet of Ministers to draft and submit bills concerning the legalisation of amber mining to Parliament by 1 October 2019.<\/p>\n
According to Maria Repko, deputy executive director of the Centre for Economic Strategy of Ukraine, the state loses at least 400 million dollars a year due to illegal amber mining, deforestation and gambling. Illegal amber mining ranges from 70 to 350 tonnes a year, while only 2.5 tonnes of the raw material are mined legally. The new regulations are intended not only to legalise mining, but also to curb the export of the raw material abroad.<\/p>\n
Source<\/em>vesti.ua; president.gov.ua; rada.gov.ua<\/p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Illegal amber mining in Ukraine ranges from 70 to 350 tonnes a year, while only 2.5 tonnes of the raw material are mined legally. At the president's behest, the Cabinet of Ministers has prepared a package of draft laws that will legalise mining and restrict the export of the raw material.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18075,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"slim_seo":{"title":"Ukraina zalegalizuje wydobycie bursztynu - Amber Portal","description":"Illegal amber mining in Ukraine ranges from 70 to 350 tonnes annually, while only 2.5 tonnes of the raw material are mined legally. The Cabinet of Ministers on pol"},"_slim_seo_primary_term_category":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_post_tag":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_sekcja":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"sekcja":[],"class_list":["post-18076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-informacje"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18076"},{"taxonomy":"sekcja","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sekcja?post=18076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}