Recreational activities in the National Natural Parks of Ukrainian Polissia: current realities

The purpose of the publication is the study and analysis of recreational activities in the national natural parks of Ukrainian Polissia under martial law. To this purpose, based on the generalization of information from the official websites of the national natural parks and the information resource about protected nature of Ukraine - Wownature., their general physical and geographical characteristics were carried out, ecological trails, routes that provide an opportunity to get acquainted with the nature of Ukrainian Polissya, and accommodation facilities were indicated. It has been established that recreational activities in the territories of the national natural parks are mainly seasonal in nature. The main problems that affect the functioning of the national natural parks under the conditions of the Russia-Ukrainian war and reduce their ability to perform a recreational function were identified. Most of the parks remain in the zone of security threat: near the Ukrainian-Belarusian and Ukrainian-Russian borders, therefore access to the territory is restricted due to martial law or military operations. The national natural parks of Ukrainian Polissya were grouped by the level of safety of visiting. This made it possible to establish that under martial law, only the Kivertsivskyi National Natural Park "Tsumanskaya Pushcha", located in the conditionally safe macroregion of Tyl, is accessible for visiting. Visiting the territories of the parks located in the dangerous 100-kilometer zone ("Zalissya") and the most dangerous 30-kilometer zone ("Desnyansko-Starohutskyi") is temporarily prohibited. Other NNPs have a visit status of partially restricted. To determine the possibilities of organizing a weekend tour, an assessment of the 100-kilometer accessibility along the main roads to the territory of the NNP "Pushcha Radziwila" created in wartime conditions in 2022 was carried out using the Google Earth Pro web resource. The conducted study confirmed the feasibility of choosing this recreation format.