Białowieża forest

Mark 10 Comments
By Krzysztof Maria Różański, (Upior polnocy) – Own workThis photo from Podlaskie Voievodeship was taken during Polish Wikiexpedition 2009 set up by Wikimedia Polska Association, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7306997

I’ve never been to Poland, though I did once spend a night sharing a bottle of port with a drunken Pole on a sleeper through Germany.  If I ever do get to Poland then this forest would be high on my list of sites to see.

It’s part of our shared European natural heritage and as close to being unique as any site on our continent. And yet the Polish government is intent on removing much of its protection and allowing logging. It’s wildlife vandalism on a massive, spectacular scale.

Not surprisingly WWF, Greenpeace-Poland and Birdlife International are campaigning against this destruction.

There’s a petition you could sign (and the sooner the better please), there’s a demo in London on Saturday and you can follow events through @Greenpeace_PL , @OTOP_tweets and @WWF_Polska

Why is it remotely acceptable for a government to behave like this?

By Ralf Lotys (Sicherlich) – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=369466

 

 

 

 

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10 Replies to “Białowieża forest”

  1. and we think we have problems!
    Please care enough to sign. Not our country, but our world.

  2. This is disgraceful. Isn’t the forest protected under any EU environmental regulations?

  3. Ooh this sounds bad. Why would you grant permission – or relax laws (same thing) unless it was to make money?

  4. Is this the disease of the new world, post-Trump? Some governments now feel they have licence to behave in despicable ways towards the environment? I’m so upset by this – the more so because I have visited it – Poland, you will destroy a large part of your attraction for visitors.

  5. I visited this forest in 2002 yet it and its wildlife is still vivid in my mind. Certainly the most beautiful woodland I have ever been in like a natural cathedral of trees, uncut in the main. If you care at all about our world sign this petition.

  6. I wonder if the pope ha said anything about this. his word must still carry a lot of weight in Poland. Unbelievably awful at a time when we should be rewilding one of our very last true wildernesses is being ‘managed’.

  7. I spent a number of happy weeks in this forest in the 1990s helping to track wolves. It is a genuinely remarkable place. (We also incidentally as a group of UK volunteers managed to drink the local shop dry of vodka, but that’s another story).
    The local rangers and wildlife officers must be heart broken.

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