MINSK, 11 June (BelTA) – Animals must have the right to live, and in matters of how we treat them, everything must be done according to the law, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he appointed Maksim Lysenko as Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection on 11 June, BelTA has learned.
“You know my attitude toward nature, toward wildlife, toward animals in general. Both domestic animals, those raised in agriculture, and wild animals, it doesn’t matter. They must have the right to live. And everything must be done according to the law. If we have many animals, that’s a good thing. I know what hunters are like. They need neither to eat nor drink, or only drink, without food, and they’ll hunt day and night,” the president said. “I know this well. I’m a hunter on paper, but I’ve never killed anything. Hunters say: ‘We don’t kill, we harvest game’. It’s the same to me.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko made the remark in connection with discussions about the possibility of transferring the State Inspectorate for the Protection of Fauna and Flora to the authority of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection. “The inspectorate must remain an inspectorate, even if it ends up under your ministry,” the head of state said.
“Those who despoil nature, and there are many such individuals, particularly within the agricultural sector, whether through the springtime discharge of slurry into rivers or lakes, or through other incidents, or through poachers setting nets or roaming the forest with firearms, shooting indiscriminately, this is impermissible,” the president said.
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