Who can save Poland's oldest forest from environmental disaster?

[unhappycamper]

http://www.dw.com/en/who-can-save-polands-oldest-forest-from-environmental-disaster/a-19120458

Polish ecological organizations are up in arms over plans to reintroduce large-scale logging in the protected Bialowieza forest in the east of the country, in response to a massive spruce bark beetle infestation there.

Who can save Poland's oldest forest from environmental disaster?
Julian Berner
21.03.2016

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In 2011, strict quotas on the amount of harvested timber were introduced by the former Polish government in response to a large-scale campaign by Polish and international ecologists. Before, in much of the forest, towering oak, spruce, larch and pine trees used to be commercially exploited.

Until 2021, foresters were set a limit of 63,000 cubic meters of timber. But due to an unprecedented invasion of the spruce bark beetle, foresters have dusted off their chainsaws to get rid of the pest. The limit has been all but exhausted in half the allotted time.

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But to green activists, "active protection" is a misnomer. They are fiercely opposing plans by the Polish environment ministry to contain the outbreak by harvesting up to five times more timber in Bialowieza than before. During one event, organised by Greenpeace, an enormous Valentine's Day card for Bialowieza was created right in the centre of Warsaw.

Greenpeace Poland director Robert Cyglicki told DW he is appalled at the approach of the Polish environment minister, Jan Szyszko. "What really worries us is that, in his statement, he explained to the public that there is about 600 million Polish zlotys (worth of deadwood) left rotting, which shows that he doesn't see Bialowieza forest as a natural forest, as a place that deserves protection," he says.