8,000 hectares of land confiscated from a fish farm in Odesa region

The court confiscated 8.5 thousand hectares of land on the shores of Lake Kahul from the Danube Aquaresource Limited Liability Company and withdrew the water body itself from the company's use.

This was reported by the Bessarabia INFORM publication with reference to the Department of Agrarian Policy, Food and Land Relations of the Odesa Regional State Administration.

According to the ruling of the Southwestern Economic Court of Appeal, in June 2023, the deputy head of the prosecutor's office filed a lawsuit against the LLC with the Economic Court of Odesa Oblast, asking it to

• to remove obstacles to the owner, the state represented by the Odesa Regional State Administration, in the use and disposal of property by terminating the use by Danube Aquaresurs LLC of Lake Kahul with an area of 8.5 hectares located in the Izmail district together with the land plot under it for the purposes of special use of aquatic bioresources in the fishery exploitation regime
• to oblige Danube Aquaresource LLC to return the Kahul Lake and the land plot under it to the state.

In November 2023, the court granted the prosecutor's claim in full. This decision was made because Danube Aquaresource LLC has been using Cahul Lake without any legal basis since 2019, in the absence of any title to the land plot and water body.

Disagreeing with the court's decision, Danube Aquaresurs LLC filed an appeal against it, asking to set it aside and make a new decision dismissing the claim.

In support of the arguments and claims of the appeal, the defendant stated that the court did not pay attention to the fact that in carrying out its business activities under the Regime, the defendant uses only aquatic bioresources, and not water or land under water. No objections were received regarding the use of aquatic bioresources, and the defendant pays taxes and fees established by law on time and does not commit any violations of the law.

According to the information provided to the court by the Department of the State Agency of Land Reclamation and Fisheries, Danube Aquaresurs LLC did not carry out fishery and reclamation works (installation of spawning nests, except for 2020), improvement of spawning grounds, clearing of canals and channels) in 2019-2022. And in 2021, the company stopped working on the introduction of aquatic bioresources. At the same time, the company continued to catch fish.

Кирило Бойко