TRANSFORMATION OF THE INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR FUNDING AREAS WITHIN THE NATURAL RESERVE FUND IN THE CONTEXT OF DIVERSIFICATION OF FINANCIAL SOURCES

The existing system for financing Ukraine’s nature reserve areas during the pre-war and wartime periods is characterised by an excessive standardisation of the sources, methods and instruments used to provide financial and investment support for nature conservation, and also incorporates a range of vestiges of the command-and-control economy. This article substantiates the theoretical, methodological, and institutional foundations for transforming the system of financing Ukraine’s nature reserve fund in the context of military challenges, postwar recovery, and the deepening of European integration processes. The need to transition from a centralized model of financial support to a diversified, multi-level system focused on combining internal, public, and international financial resources has been established. A phased approach to transforming the financing system for the nature reserve fund in the postwar period has been developed. The paper justifies the feasibility of expanding the range of fee-based services provided by nature reserve institutions, commercializing ecosystem services, developing recreational infrastructure, creating special budgetary and extrabudgetary funds, institutionalizing public-private partnerships, and actively mobilizing resources from international environmental funds. The prospects for strengthening the role of local communities in financing nature conservation efforts in the context of budgetary and fiscal decentralization have been identified, and the need to establish regional and local special funds for the development of nature conservation areas has been substantiated. The potential of grant funding and cross-border cooperation as tools for attracting additional financial resources has been established. Promising “green” financing instruments are proposed, including payments for ecosystem services, carbon credits, and green bonds. It is argued that their implementation, in combination with budgetary, private, grant, and international sources, will contribute to the formation of a modern, multi-channel model for financing the nature conservation fund, enhance the investment capacity of the environmental sector, and provide financial support for the restoration of natural biogeocenoses in the post-war period.