Poles demonstrate against government attack on Bialowieza forest

This 2016 video is called Wild Things – Wildlife in Bialowieza, Poland.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV:

Polish people demonstrate for preservation of last virgin forest

Today, 01:48

In Warsaw, thousands of people have demonstrated against further logging in the Bialowieza forest, the last European virgin forest. The Polish government wants to increase deforestation in the area, but environmental groups are strongly opposed to that.

Greenpeace calls the logging “a crime against our heritage”. “You just have to look at satellite photos to see that Europe’s last virgin forest is becoming a plantation,” says Greenpeace’s leader in Poland.

Prime Minister Szydlo’s conservative government decided last year to triple the wood harvest in the forest. This, they said, was necessary, inter alia, to effectively combat bark beetles.

Blockade

Conservationists call this a nonsense argument. According to them, healthy trees of sometimes one hundred years old are also cut down. Out of protest, they have blocked bulldozers and other heavy equipment for deforestation in the woods in recent weeks.

This Polish 30 May 2017 video is about an anti-deforestation protest in Bialowieza forest.

The forest of Bialowieza is as big as the Dutch province of Utrecht and lies in the border area of ​​Poland and Belarus. It is the natural habitat of the European bison, the wisent. However, only a part of the area is protected on the Polish side.

If it is in the hands of the activists, then the whole area would get national park status. Thus it would be protected automatically against logging. But the Minister of Environment sees nothing in protecting the special forest. He also wants to get the area off the UNESCO World Heritage List.