Poland approves large-scale logging in Europe's last primeval forest

[Eugene]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Poland approves large-scale logging in Europe's last primeval forest

Agence France-Presse
Saturday 26 March 2016 01.54 GMT

Poland has approved large-scale logging in Europe’s last primeval woodland in a bid to combat a beetle infestation despite protests from scientists, ecologists and the European Union.

The action in the Białowieża forest is intended to fight the spread of the spruce bark beetle.

“We’re acting to curb the degradation of important habitats, to curb the disappearance and migration of important species from this site,” the environment minister, Jan Szyszko, said.

Szyszko vowed that the logging plans would not apply to strictly protected areas of the primeval forest that was designated a Unesco World Heritage site in 1979.

But under the new plan, loggers will harvest more than 180,000 cubic metres (6.4m cubic feet) of wood from other areas of the forest over a decade, dwarfing previous plans to harvest 40,000 cubic metres over the same period.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/26/poland-approves-large-scale-logging-in-europes-last-primeval-forest

[pscot]

1. We have to cut the trees down

in order to save them.