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PrimalNature.org
February 3, 2006
Help
Save Primeval Forest in Northern Europe
The 1600 sq km (617 sq miles) Bialowieza Forest, “the
last large remaining fragment of primeval deciduous forest” in
northern Europe is disappearing.
Bialowieza is a remnant of the forests that once covered the
lowlands of Europe and is home to a rich wildlife, including
wolves, lynx, and Wisent (Bison
bonasus)j. Polish
scientist Thomas Wesolowki in an article in Conservation
Biology (“Virtual Conservation,” October 2005, pp.
1349-1358) presents the urgency of the situation and calls for
help.
Completely protected forests amount to less than 0.1% of
Europe’s woodlands and are mostly in little populated regions
and on terrain inhospitable to agriculture.
Bialowieza is an exception.
It is easily accessible and on rich soil. The forest survived largely intact from the fourteenth
century to the early twentieth century, because it was a royal
hunting preserve. Logging
began with the Germans in World War I.
After World War II, the forest was divided between Poland
(40%) and the Soviet Union (now Belarus 60%).
In the Polish portion, a 4700-ha Bialoweiza National Park
has been strictly protected; commercial logging has taken place
over the remainder. The
doubling of the area covered by the National Park in 1996 and the
establishment of new nature reserves in 2003 made little
difference. As of
2001 stands 100 years of age or older covered only 20% of the
managed forest.
. In the
Soviet era, extensive drainage works were constructed, but
commercial logging did not take place.
When Belarus came into existence, it set aside a
15,700-ha national park and encouraged logging elsewhere in
the forest. Now a sawmill complex has been built within the park,
and commercial logging is proceeding even there.
Despite the destruction, patches of forest that retain
characteristics of primitive forest, not found in other European
temperate forests, remain: stands with multiple stories, much dead
wood, large trees, diverse tree communities, and variation in age
and size of trees within stands, with some individuals 400-500
years old. The
wildlife population is diverse.
Although the forest has not yet been completely
inventoried, some 900 species of vascular plants, 200 Bryopsida,
400 lichens, 3000 fungi, more than 9280 insects, 178 breeding
birds, and 58 species of mammals have been recorded. Furthermore, the species are present in communities in which
“interrelationships among species and their abiotic
environment” are retained.
The forest is indispensable to scientists, as it is the
only place where “one can still observe ecological and
evolutionary processes once typical of the biome of deciduous and
mixed-deciduous European forests.” It is also a benchmark against which other European forests
can be judged. Research in the forest has resulted in more than
4000 scientific publications.
The completely protected Bialowieza National Park is not
large enough to preserve the characteristics of the primeval
forest and its natural processes.
Wildlife populations are already being adversely impacted.
Scientists, non-government organizations, and many members
of the general public in Poland and Belarus realize this, but
presentations to the governments and protests have not stopped the
logging.
The forest can only be saved by international pressure on
the governments of Poland and Belarus and on European
institutions, particularly the European Union, which could change
the attitude of the national governments and furnish financial
help. In the long term, such legal measures as the transformation
of the entire forest into a strictly protected binational park
need to be put in place. In
the short term, the essential is an immediate ban on “all
logging in natural stands of the forest.”
Polish conservationists have organized an international
forest protection campaign to culminate with a concert in the
Biolowieza Village March 3; and the struggle in Belarus continues.
Below are a number of supporting actions from which readers
can choose.
Send hard-copy letters to:
President of Poland
Lech Kaczynski
ul. Wiejska 10
00-902 Warsaw
Poland (include a request that
he initiate legislation on behalf of the forest)
Janusz Reiter, Ambassador
Polish Embassy
2640 16th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009
President of the Belarus
Republic:
A. G. Lukashenko
38 Karl Marx Street
Minx
Belarus 220016
(and a copy if possible to the
person below)
Minister of Natural Resources of
Belarus:
L. I. Khoruzhick
10 Kollektornaya Street
Minsk
Belarus 220048
For the European Union,
contact through a hard-copy letter and/or e-mail the following:
Mr. Stavros Dimas, Commissioner
for the Environment
stavros.dimas@cec.eu.int
Mrs. Danuta Hübner,
Commissioner for Regional Policy
Cabinet-Huebner@cec.eu.int
Janez Potocnik, Commissioner for
Science and Research
janez.potocnik@cec.eu.int
The address for letters for each
of the three people in the European Commission is European
Commission, B-1049 Brussels, Belgium.
Written communications need not be lengthy; but should
include the fact that the forest is an international treasure and
that logging of stands of natural origin should be banned
immediately. Each
hard-copy letter to Europe requires 83 cents in stamps (air mail).
Call the attention of the media to Bialowieza Forest.
English-speaking conservationists who can conduct
interviews by telephone from Poland can be identified through an
e-mail to this web site or to the ones listed below.
If you live in a major city, visit the Polish
embassy/consulate to speak to the staff (US addresses at
www.polandembassy.org/Links/p7-2.htm
) or distribute flyers or organize a demonstration outside the
embassy/consulate and send out press announcements on your action.
Further information and photographs can be found at http://www.republika.pl/bialowieza_forest/
and http://bison.org.pl/ .
Our description of the forest above is based on the article
by Weslowski, “Virtual Conservation:
How the European Union Is Turning a Blind Eye to Its
Vanishing Primeval Forest” cited above; the actions are drawn
from the web sites listed and from personal communications from
Stefan Jakimiuk and Eunice Blavascunas in Poland.
--Mary Byrd Davis
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