RECREATIONAL FOREST MANAGEMENT IN UKRAINE

The article is dedicated to the main aspects of recreational forest management in Ukraine. According to epidemiological situation in the country, one of the most important functions of the forest is recreation, because the last one, in the author's opinion, is one of the important forms of rational leisure, meaningful leisure, health and treatment, cognitive interests. The article considers the issues of general and special recreational forest use and defines the concept of «ecotourism», which means the type of tourism, that consists of travel to natural areas to satisfy cultural, environmental, educational, cognitive and other needs without anthropogenic impact (or minimal impact) on the relevant area. It is established that the constantly growing process of attracting more and more people to the cycle of recreational activities leads to the constant expansion of forest areas, to some extent covered by recreational activities. That is why an important condition for rational use, protection and management of recreational forests is their zoning. It is concluded that according to their functional features, human recreational activities in forests can be divided into the following types: medical, health, sports, tourism, cognitive, mining, emotional and motivating. And, most often, these activities are closely interrelated, or one activity stems from another. In addition, it is given the definition of «recreational forest use» — as a set of actions aimed at meeting their needs with the involvement of forest resources (recreation, tourism, sports, amateur fishing, treatment and rehabilitation, etc.).