A country that has entered history: At four o’clock on the morning of 26 April 1986 a tremendous explosion ripped apart the nuclear power station at Chernobyl, causing death and destruction. On 15 December 2000, some 14 years later, the Ukrainian government decided finally to shut down the station for good, following the international commitments assumed in conformity with the Ottawa Memorandum in 1995. So far the victims of the accident number over 3.4 million, but Chernobyl continues through the years to cause “invisible deaths”: if the effects of the atomic radiation have been stabilized in adults, it is the children who now suffer the greatest damage: the result is that an infant mortality rate of around 12.9% is now being registered in the Ukraine. The Ukrainian Episcopal Conference has created a “Centre of environmental information”, with the task of coordinating the environmental activities and educational programmes promoted by the dioceses and parishes and providing information on European programmes and initiatives of the Churches in this sector. “By sustainable development affirm the experts of the Centre is meant the interaction between a balanced environment, economic growth and social well-being”. From this point of view, Ukraine is experiencing a difficult moment. In the course of 2000, thanks to a certain growth in domestic and international demand, the economy of the country had shown signs of recovery, but in the first few months of 2001, the tendency has once again worsened and inflation has begun to rise again. According to the official statistics, 11.7% of the labour force in the Ukraine is unemployed, and the average income is only about 50 dollars per month. The efforts made by the government and by the current president to improve the country’s economic situation have failed. The experts of the Ukrainian Church insist: “it’s been proved that a form of economic growth that is not aimed at ecological respect and social equity, cannot deliver collective well-being but only determine the even more flagrant division of the population between the very rich and the very poor”. Some experts consulted by the Church have formulated a series of proposals that try to reconcile respect for the environment with the growth of employment. The suggestions include the creation of new jobs for the unemployed in activities such as reforestation; land reclamation; the recycling of waste (in the Ukraine, only 2% of all waste is recycled); and farming.
