Summary:

In the Western Ukraine there are unique regions important in ecological, biogeographical, landscape and environmental regard. These are the Carpathians, Pokuttya, Roztocha, Western Polissya, Volyn (Ladomirien) and Podilla, which were an object of interest of naturalists for a long period of time . In the 19-th century and in the period between 1st and 2nd World wars, when that territory belonged to the Polish state, Polish botanists and foresters (the list of their publications includes more than 300 names) contributed substantially to studying flora and vegetation of that territory. In the second half of 19th century a broad net of railways was built there, which favoured to bringing nearer the West-European markets to rich natural resources. In order to satisfy the needs of quickly developing forestry industry massive cutting of the oak forests had started in flat landscapes and coniferous forests in mountain regions. As a result of such intensive clean cutting in humid region of the Carpathians, soil erosion processes started and periodic catastrophic floods appeared .In Volyn and Podilla regions relic steppe formations, valuable from botanic and phytogeographical point of view, started disappearing. The far-sighed Polish scientists estimated ecological consequences of anthropogenic transformations of natural vegetation, and in proper time addressed the question about protection of the most biogeographically important natural ecosystems and specific rare genopool and phytocoenopool. At the beginning of 20th century they proposed creation in the Carpathians the national park and the net of natural reservations .The publications of Polish naturalists were highly estimated by the Ukrainian environmentalists and were creatively used for the continuation of floristic and phytocoenotic studies .These data are also utilised for the ecological grounding of new preserved objects of alive and not alive nature.