ELAW Fellows Arrive from Kyiv and Kinshasa

Please join us in welcoming our new ELAW Fellows who arrived from Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of Congo last week.

Bohdan Kuchenko is a scientist at the Kyiv office of Environment People Law. He is an ecologist and will work closely with ELAW staff and experts from the U.S. and around the world to help protect Ukraine’s communities and ecosystems from the Russian aggression. “I want to ensure that Ukraine’s forests are protected in our post-war economic recovery,” he says.

Bohdan’s work at EPL is focused on sustainable forest management, advocating for biodiversity rich forests, and ensuring that the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process protects Ukraine’s natural resources from short-sighted exploitation.

Jimmy Munguriek Ufoy is an attorney and Executive Director at Cadre de Concertation de la Société Civile de l’Ituri sur les Ressources Naturelles (Ituri Civil Society Natural Resources Consultation Framework, CdC/RN Ituri). The Ituri office of this national community organization is based in Bunia, in northeast DRC, near Lake Albert and the Uganda border.

Jimmy will work closely with the ELAW Team to protect communities in his region from the impacts of ill-advised oil development, polluting mines, and logging operations.

“We’ve had mining operations in DRC for many years, but Congo is still one of the poorest nations in the world,” says Jimmy, who notes that only 14% of citizens have access to electricity and in Ituri Province access to electricity falls to 1%.

“My goal is to advance an energy policy which provides equitable access to electricity,” he says, adding: “We fight all forms of environmental destruction and work to ensure that the benefits of natural resource extraction are equally allocated to local communities.”

Bohdan and Jimmy are also participating in the University of Oregon’s American English Institute (AEI) Intensive English Program. Many thanks to AEI for providing Jimmy and Bohdan with Janet Hughes Mersereau Scholarships.

Jimmy’s ELAW Fellowship is funded in part by generous support from The 11th Hour Project and Arcadia – a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. Bohdan’s ELAW Fellowship is funded by generous support from the Trust for Mutual Understanding.

If you are in the Eugene area and would like host our ELAW Fellows on an outing to explore one of our region’s many natural wonders, please contact me by email.

Maggie Keenan
Communications Director & Fellows Program Coordinator
Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide