Thread by @CaroRackete

Today it's the day of #Chernobyl disaster. Many people still suffer from health impacts.

A large part of the contaminated area is now a biosphere reserve (Ukraine & Belarus). Here some short parts of an interview I did in 12/18 with reserve educator Viktoria Melnychuk.

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"A lot of visitors are scared to come here, especially Ukrainians. There was no information. People didn't know what had happened and which process has been made since. We try to change this and provide information."

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"For us it's important to change people's mind. They come here thinking everything is bad and destroyed. They leave thinking that life finds ways to recover from disaster, that things can be restored and that there is hope for our children."

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"We try to make other ecological improvements within our reserve such as sorting and recycling trash. But there is no point if our reserve is free of trash, if everything around it is polluted. We try to educate visitors on these issues by giving a good example."

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For disclosure: I haven't been on the park's territory, the interview was done in Kiev. The picture of the Przewalski horses was taken by reserve staff.

The biosphere reserve is one of the largest in Europe, home to many rare plant and wildlife species.

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The impacts of radiation on wildlife are continously investigated by scientists and are not clear. While there is a lot of (rare) species because there are few humans, radiation most certainly has negative long-term impacts on wildlife health.

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nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/04/0…