Assessment of the impact of environmental control on ensuring rational nature use in Ukraine

Abstract

Assessment of the state of the natural environment by state authorities is an integral part of ensuring rational nature management. In Ukraine, implementing the function of state environmental control is entrusted to the territorial bodies of the State Environmental Inspection. The activities of state environmental inspections located in 22 regions and the city of Kyiv (excluding temporarily occupied regions) are designed to assess the impact of economic entities on the environment by conducting inspections, assessing the amount of damage caused, imposing fines for detected offenses, holding them accountable, etc. Based on this, in favorable conditions, the essence of environmental control should ensure rational nature management. However, considering the current level of environmental pollution, the question of the efficiency of  the activities of environmental inspections in ensuring of the rational nature management is crucial for investigation. Given this, further research is based on testing the hypothesis that environmental control is capable of ensuring rational nature management. Using the Stata panel regression modeling toolbox, seventy-six models were built to assess the impact of indicators of environmental inspections activity on the level of environmental pollution of atmospheric air, water bodies and waste, the corresponding amounts of environmental tax revenues and environmental protection measures. As a result of the assessment, it was determined that only a few actions of environmental inspections are capable of contributing to the rational use of nature. This applies to water resources (implemented in five studied models), atmospheric air (applies only to eight factor variables), waste (the influence between the seven constructed models is determined). It was mathematically proven that the activity of environmental inspections cannot be called effective, and therefore the previously put forward hypothesis is refuted. At the same time, since the environmental inspection does not perform the main tasks and functions assigned to it, the question arises regarding the need to reorganize such an environmental supervision body and reassess the scope of their powers.