After Ecocide: Grappling With the Ecological and Socioeconomic Consequences of the Destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant in Southern Ukraine

The scale of the disaster caused by the Russian army’s ecocidal act of blowing up the Kakhovka dam on June 6 has drawn comparisons with the explosion at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. This panel brought together scholars of and from the most heavily affected regions in order to specify this war crime’s likely long-term environmental, economic, and social impacts, and to discuss how different actors can best respond to them in the midst Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.

 

 

Speakers: 

 

Anna Olenenko is an environmental historian from Ukraine, currently at the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada). She has a Candidate of Sciences degree in history from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 2013. Anna’s research interests are related to the environmental history of Ukraine, especially the Steppe region, and animal studies. Her research on the history of Dnipro wetlands which disappeared in the 1950s due the construction of Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station was published in the article“’Our New Sea Is Our New Sorrow’: The Conflict between the Ukrainian and the Soviet in the Struggle for the Design of the Lower Dnipro’s Landscape,” Ab Imperio 2019.

 

Ivan Moysiyenko has a doctor of biological sciences degree and is professor and is head of the Department of Botany at Kherson State University. A key focus of his recent research has been Ukraine’s grassland habitats. For example, he has studied kurgans as refugia of steppe flora in the agricultural landscapes in southern Ukraine. He has carried out applied research in preparation for the formation of many protected areas in Ukraine, including the National Park “Kamianska Sich.” Recent co-authored publications include “Vascular Plants of Old Cemeteries of the Lower Dnipro Region” and “Potential Protected Areas in Kherson Oblast.”

 

Viktor Karamushka has a candidate of sciences degree in biology and is currently head of the Department of Environmental Studies at the National University “Kyiv Mohyla Academy.” His areas of research include environmental microbiology, ecology and environmental management. His recent co-authored publications include “Trends in the Environmental Conditions, Climate Change and Human Health in the Southern Region of Ukraine” Sustainability (2022) and “Climate impact drivers provoke fires in protected areas of Polissia. In: XVI International Scientific Conference “Monitoring of Geological Processes and Ecological Condition of the Environment” (2021).

 

Ihor Pylypenko is Professor of Geography and Ecology and Dean at the Faculty of Geography, Biology, and Ecology at Kherson State University. His areas of expertise include regional development, rural development, and nature conservation in southern Ukraine, particularly in Kherson Oblast. He has commented extensively in the Ukrainian media about the consequences of the destruction of the Kakhovka HES. His recent publications include “Mykolaiv and Kherson as Port Centres: Common Characteristics and Problems of Development” and the co-authored articles “A Regional Analysis of the Use of Recreation Potential of Ukrainian Regions in Contemporary Geopological Conditions” (2021).

 

Brian Kuns is currently Associate Senior Lecturer at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in the Department of Rural and Urban Development. He received his PhD in Human Geography from Stockholm University and he studies questions of agricultural corporatization, changing agrarian structure, smallholders, and farm labor, with respect to Ukraine and Sweden. Brian has conducted research in Kherson oblast in southern Ukraine, studying, among other things, how irrigated agriculture, which in this region is dependent on the now emptying Kakhovka reservoir, has changed during the period of Ukrainian independence. He is author of “'In These Complicated Times': An Environmental History of Irrigated Agriculture in Post-Communist Ukraine” which appeared in Water Alternatives. (https://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/alldoc/articles/vol11/v11issue3/468-a11-3-21/file)

 

 

Moderator and Organizer: Tanya Richardson, Associate Professor, Anthropology and Global Studies Programs, Wilfrid Laurier University