The 220,000-Hectare Reserve Created Inside Chornobyl’s Exclusion Zone

Around the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, from which residents were evacuated after the 1986 accident, lies what is now Ukraine’s largest nature reserve: the Chornobyl Radiation and Ecological Biosphere Reserve (Чорнобильський радіаційно-екологічний біосферний заповідник). It was established by presidential decree on April 26, 2016, the 30th anniversary of the accident, and covers 226,964.7 hectares in Kyiv Oblast.

The growth in wildlife within the exclusion zone is also touched on in our article on the causes and present state of the Chornobyl nuclear accident. This article traces when and for what purpose the “reserve” system protecting this land was created.

Drawing another line within the exclusion zone

The foundation is a law of February 27, 1991, “On the Legal Regime of Territory Contaminated by Radioactivity as a Result of the Chornobyl Disaster” (No. 791a-XII). This law divides the contaminated territory into several zones, defining the first, the “exclusion zone” (зона відчуження), as “the territory from which residents were evacuated in 1986.” The second, the “zone of unconditional (mandatory) resettlement,” is territory where soil contamination by cesium exceeds a set level.

In these two zones, permanent settlement, unauthorized entry, grazing, hunting, and fishing, among other things, are banned. An amendment of July 14, 2016 (No. 1472-VIII, took effect August 4 that year) added a provision allowing nature protection areas to be established within these two zones for research and the conservation of biodiversity. The presidential decree establishing the reserve also took effect on the same date, August 4.

The four goals stated in the presidential decree

Presidential Decree No. 174/2016 of April 26, 2016 states, at its outset, the following goals for establishing the reserve.

• Preserving, in its natural state, the most typical nature of Polissia (the forest and wetland region of northern Ukraine)
• Supporting and enhancing the “barrier function” of the exclusion zone and the mandatory resettlement zone — that is, their role in preventing contamination from spreading outward
• Stabilizing the state of water flows and restoring land contaminated with radioactive material
• Advancing international scientific research

The decree established the reserve within the then-existing districts of Ivankiv and Polissia (both in Kyiv Oblast), and provided for transferring 226,964.7 hectares of state land, previously used by the exclusion zone administration, to the reserve. This land transfer was carried out, at the same area, by Cabinet of Ministers Order No. 799-r of September 10, 2022. The reserve is a state institution placed under the State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone Management (SAUEZM).

According to the reserve, this was not the first time a protected area had been created on this land. In 2007, a presidential decree had established the state wildlife refuge “Chornobylskyi Special.” The reserve explains that the Ministry of Environmental Protection approved a proposal to establish a biosphere reserve in 2013, and that three years of preparation led to the 2016 presidential decree.

The reserve’s four zones

Under a plan approved by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, the reserve divides its land into four zones.

Animals and plants recorded

According to the reserve, plants recorded there include 1,256 species of vascular plant, 120 species of lichen, and 20 species of moss. Vertebrates recorded number more than 300 of the roughly 410 species found in the region, of which 75 are listed in Ukraine’s Red Data Book. The focus of research is on large carnivores such as brown bears, lynx, and wolves, and large herbivores such as moose, red deer, and roe deer, whose numbers, the reserve writes, have grown substantially in recent years.

Especially well known is the wild Przewalski’s horse (mowkonoina). The reserve explains that a herd released in the 1990s lives in the wild without fencing, and states that this is the only place in the world where they live unfenced alongside other wildlife. European bison were also confirmed in the exclusion zone for the first time in April 2012. The connection between Przewalski’s horses and the Askania-Nova steppe reserve in the south is introduced in our article on the unplowed steppe and 28 lakes preserved in Ukraine’s nature reserves.

The 2022 occupation, and what remained after it

On February 24, 2022, the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces took control of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. According to statements from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ukrainian staff continued the plant’s daily work afterward, but the first shift change did not take place until March 20–21. On March 31, Ukraine told the IAEA that Russian forces had handed control of the plant to Ukrainian staff in writing and had moved their troops toward Belarus. The following day, April 1, Ukraine reported that all Russian forces had left, and Russian officials confirmed this at a meeting the same day.

In March 2022, in the midst of the occupation, the reserve announced that Russian forces had occupied the entire exclusion zone and had seized and looted the buildings of facilities that worked to contain radioactive material on the land. Analysis of satellite imagery indicated that fires had broken out over about 2,500 hectares during the occupation, including more than 1,600 hectares of abandoned farmland and 600 hectares of forest. It also warned that, with firefighting capacity out of action, the situation could develop into something like the large-scale wildfires of 2020.

That September, the reserve announced it was working with the state environmental oversight agency to calculate the damage from the occupation. It could survey only areas the military permitted access to, while demining continued elsewhere. Damage from mines has continued since: the reserve reports that, more than two years after the fighting ended, the State Border Guard Service confirmed a mine explosion within the zone that killed a Przewalski’s horse. An international program to restore the European bison population had also been due to start in 2022, but the reserve states it was halted by the full-scale invasion.

Fires and drones in 2026

Fires have also occurred in 2026. According to the IAEA, a fire burned 1,100 hectares in the exclusion zone on May 7, 2026, and the plant reported that it had been sparked by a drone collision. The plant stated that radiation readings showed nothing abnormal either during or after the fire. The reserve’s website posted that, as of the morning of May 11, the fire had been contained at 1,200 hectares. As of July 1, the IAEA reported, a fire covering about 130 hectares was still burning on the left bank of the Pripyat River.

An IAEA statement on September 17, 2026 said that 48 drones had been observed around the Chornobyl plant that week. Conditions around the plant are covered in our article on Ukraine’s 15 reactors, six of them at an occupied nuclear plant, and the history of cooperation with Japan in our article on Japan’s cooperation after Chornobyl.

Two different figures for the area

The reserve’s area is given as 226,964.7 hectares in the presidential decree and the 2022 Cabinet order. Some of the reserve’s own announcements, however, give it as 226,269.5 hectares. The two figures differ by about 700 hectares, so this article uses the legislative figure. The reserve describes itself, with this area, as Ukraine’s largest nature reserve.