Bialoweiza Forest, Poland & Belarus   Edward Frank
  Feb 05, 2006 08:02 PST 
From: Mary Davis
Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2006 10:57 AM
Subject: Bialoweiza Forest

Dear Ed,
    Help from ENTS to save Bialowieza Forest in Poland and Belarus is badly needed. Because you have a bigger membership/audience than PrimalNature.org , I'm writing to you as well as posting on the PrimalNature.org and Earth Island sites.   

I'm not on the ENTS list so can't write directly to your site. Could you put up something about the need for help. The site is a treasure for old-growth researchers--4000 articles on it--and is fast disappearing. I'd appreciate it if you could link to http://www.primalnature.org/alerts.html  or otherwise acknowledge PrimalNature.org if you do your own posting, which probably would best get the information across. Putting the alert together was a lot of work--not the site description but the What to do. There is an article in Conservation Biology (October 2005) on the site, which is available on the internet.

    I've written to Bob Leverett to ask for help with publicity, as he knows reporters. Material in the media as well as letters are needed.
    .
Best, Mary Davis

 

Re: Bialoweiza Forest   Edward Frank
  Feb 05, 2006 08:26 PST 

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