From now on, in a few clicks, you can inform the State Agency about detected forest fires, illegal logging, hunting, request information or report non-fulfillment of contracts. And the new telegram bot provides a list of useful links to important web resources in the forestry sector.

Today Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine Ruslan Strelets and Deputy Chairman of the State Agency for Forest Resources of Ukraine Viktor Smal presented a chatbot for the forest industry and told how digitalization of the surrounding areas is moving.

“The big problem has always been the closeness of government agencies from society and the inability to respond promptly to the requests and needs of citizens. We are now actively fighting this with the help of digitalization - we are transferring all administrative eco-services online and providing free public access to environmental information,” said Ruslan Strelets.

Our first step in this direction was the launch in December 2020 of the Mindovkilla in touch hotline in cooperation with the Government Contact Center. By phone 0800500115, everyone can get general information about the activities of the Ministry: check whether the company has a permit for emissions into the air, consult on obtaining administrative services, and file a complaint. The launch of the telegram bot of the State Forestry Agency is the next step towards establishing a dialogue with the Ukrainian one.

“Each regional department of the State Forestry Agency has a team for promptly responding to requests issued via Telegram,” Viktor Smal explained the principle of the bot's operation. - Depending on the subject of the appeal, the bot sends a message to a person in a specific region. Don't worry if you don't get a response right away. If the delay is longer than it is determined by the internal regulations, the system will issue notifications to the top-level administrator. Your question will be resolved."

A chat bot is useful to anyone who:

• witnessed illegal logging;
• discovered a fire in the forest;
• knows where poachers operate;
• there are comments regarding non-fulfillment of the terms of the auction contracts for the supply of forest products;
• wants to get a prompt answer to his questions.

To start using the bot, just press "start" and select a chain of interaction. Users can send photos "from the scene", geolocation and related documents.

In addition to the telegram bot, over the past year the state has already implemented a number of digital solutions in the forestry sector:

For the first time in the history of Ukraine, tenders for processed wood were held online (in the Lviv region), and soon this format of tenders will be scalable throughout the country.

Work is underway to decipher space images with a combination of Earth remote sensing technologies in order to establish, for the first time since independence, the exact area of ​​forest plantations in Ukraine.

A new state electronic timber accounting system is being developed.

Two of the most massive administrative services in the forestry industry have been transferred to the online format: obtaining a logging ticket and obtaining a certificate of the origin of timber. In beta, they are already available on # ecosystems.

Recall that the ecosystem's web portal is intended to become a national platform, where all administrative eco-services for business and all environmental information for citizens are collected. To date, there are already 7 online services (second beta test) available in the surrounding areas and more than 60 open registers of environmental information: https://eco.mepr.gov.ua/ 

Link to TG-BOT: https://t.me/ukrforest_bot 

TG-BOT of Goslesagentstva: VIDEO-INSTRUCTION on how to use ukrforest_bot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4PVdw-ZPvo 

kmu.gov.ua