Last stand for Europe's remaining ancient forest as loggers prepare to move in

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Last stand for Europe's remaining ancient forest as loggers prepare to move in

Arthur Neslen in Białowieża
Wednesday 18 May 2016 10.40 BST

Europe’s last primeval forest is facing what campaigners call its last stand as loggers prepare to start clear-cutting trees, following the dismissal of dozens of scientists and conservation experts opposed to the plan.

Poland’s new far right government says logging is needed because more than 10% of spruce trees in the Unesco world heritage site of Białowieża are suffering from a bark beetle outbreak. But nearly half the logging will be of other species, according to its only published inventory.

Oak trees as high as 150 feet that have grown for 450 years could be reduced to stumps under the planned threefold increase in tree fells. Białowieża hosts Europe’s largest bison population and wolves and lynx still roam freely across its sun-mottled interior. Its foliage stretches for nearly 1,000 square miles across the border between Poland and Belarus.

Beneath its green canopy, sunlight filters down on to a panorama of skyscraper trees soaring as much as 180 feet into the air, swampy water pools dammed by beavers, and psychedelic fungi that sprout from tree trunks.

But a recently-passed logging law to allow work to begin on the old-growth forest has divided families, and led to death threats against campaigners and allegations of an “environmental coup” by state interests linked to the timber trade. The logging in Białowieża is expected to raise about 700m złotys (£124m), and pave the way for extensive and more lucrative tree clearances.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/18/last-stand-for-europes-remaining-ancient-forest-as-loggers-prepare-to-move-in-bialowieza

[villager]

1. Fighting "a new mixture of cultures and races," from the folks who brought you Auschwitz.

Poland's foreign minister, quoted in the Guardian:

"We only want to cure our country of a few illnesses ... a new mixture of cultures and races, a world made up of cyclists and vegetarians, who only use renewable energy and who battle all signs of religion.”

[MFM008]

2. They should declare it

a holocaust remembrance site, you dont know where the Nazis buried the bodies. You cant go stomping around a graveyard.