Europe’s last ancient forest, home to its largest herd of bison, faces an uncertain future because of climate change, but residents worry that tougher conservation efforts will damage the local economy.
The 150,000-hectare Bialowieza Primeval Forest, which straddles the border between Poland and Belarus, is one of the largest unpopulated woodlands remaining in Europe. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979.
On the Polish side of the border, residents oppose plans to extend the protected zone of this unique habitat, which is under threat from rising temperatures and declining rainfall.
Encouraged by international conservation agencies, Warsaw wants to enlarge the area’s national park, which occupies less than a fifth of the Polish part of the forest.
It has offered up to 100 million zlotys (US$33.61 million) to be shared among the nine communities that would be affected by broader regulations protecting wildlife.
However, the region is among the poorest in Poland and residents of Bialowieza district (population 2,400) are skeptical, fearing it would discourage investment, cause job losses and reduce the community’s tax revenues.
“You may think we are fools not willing to take the money,” Mayor Albert Litwinowicz said. “But it will only go for green investments, while we need roads.”
Forests occupy more than 80 percent of the Bialowieza administrative district and provide a significant part of the its income, thanks to government cash.
Revenues come mostly from woodland and other subsidies from the central government, plus grants and other state aid, Litwinowicz said.
Income would be halved if the whole area were incorporated into the national park and most of about 50 forestry workers, responsible for maintaining the woodland as well as for cutting the timber, could be laid off, he said.
Bialowieza district would be fully incorporated into the national park under the current proposal.
“Building anything in the middle of a national park with strict conservation rules would be almost impossible and we want to develop better transport ... and other infrastructure,” Litwinowicz said.
There are no major industrial centers nearby. Every year 150,000 people visit Bialowieza but tourism accounts for only a tenth of the district’s revenue.
However, unemployment in Bialowieza is almost non-existent, partly because a quarter of the population has left since 1990, moving to cities or, like many other people from eastern Poland, seeking better jobs in wealthier western Europe.
Signs of climate change that could threaten the forest have become more evident.
“The average annual temperature has risen by 0.8 degrees Celsius over the past 50 years. This is a lot for a primeval forest,” Elzbieta Malzahn of the Forest Research Institute said. “That’s enough time to call it a change to climate.
“There is less rain in the summer, winters are milder and end sooner, prompting vegetation to start earlier,” she said.
National park officials say the level of ground water has fallen by 50cm in the past three decades.
“Spruce roots are very shallow and they just run out of water. We are observing falling number of spruce,” park employee Mateusz Szymura said.
Bialowieza is home to 800 wild European bison, the continent’s heaviest land animals weighing up to 1 tonne each and standing up to 2m high.
So far, the changes have not endangered the bison because mammals adapt easily to a changing environment, scientists say.
They say Bialowieza had undergone many changes over the centuries and the forest had adjusted to new conditions.
“The problem, is, however, if the changes we are now causing are too fast and too unpredictable and leave nature little chance to catch up,” Malzahn said.
Political arguments between Belarus and Poland have stifled joint efforts to safeguard the forest. Since Poland joined the EU in 2004, the bloc’s eastern border runs through the forest, marked by a fence built by Belarus years ago.
The barrier prevents bison from each side from intermingling.
However, they remain genetically similar since the species was regenerated using just a few animals — and only two males — that survived in a Polish zoo after they had vanished from the wild in the 1920s as a result of hunting and poaching.
To extend the protected area on the Polish side, the central government needs the approval of local authorities and says the scheme would cost between 1.5 million and 3 million zlotys.
“For years local people have opposed plans to enlarge the park and we are now presenting a program that shows they can go on operating with an enlarged park,” Deputy Environment Minister Janusz Zaleski said.
“We also hope this money would create jobs in the region and help improve it,” he said.
Litwinowicz did not seem convinced. He said he was considering holding a referendum on the enlargement scheme.
“If where we live is so unique for the whole of Europe, why shouldn’t the residents benefit rather than suffer?,” he said. “Personally, I am against it, but the people will decide.”
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry