Białowieża Primeval Forest

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Bialowieza forest area
UNESCO world heritage UNESCO World Heritage Emblem
Białowieski Park Narodowy 6977.jpg
Dead tree in the Białowieża National Park
National territory: PolandPoland Poland Belarus
BelarusBelarus 
Type: nature
Criteria : (ix) (x)
Surface: 141,885 ha
Buffer zone: 166,708 ha
Reference No .: 33rd
UNESCO region : Europe and North America
History of enrollment
Enrollment: 1979  ( session 3 )
Extension: 1992, 2014
Location of the forest in Poland and Belarus
Białowieża Nature Reserve
Bison

The Białowieża Primeval Forest ( Belarusian Белавежская пушча Belaweschskaja Puschtscha , Polish Puszcza Białowieska ), German also Belowescher , Bialowieser or Bialowiezer Heide , is a nature reserve on both sides of the Polish - Belarusian border. The forest is considered to be one of the last remaining primeval forest areas in the temperate zone of Europe.

The Polish government planned to log 188,000 m³ of wood in the Białowieża Forest District between 2012 and 2021. After protests and lawsuits across Europe, the European Court of Justice issued an injunction on July 20, 2017 to stop the felling work. The Polish leadership ignored this and claimed that the felling served to contain the printer , but afterwards respected the verdict.

geography

The area is 150 to 170 meters above sea level. The area is over 1,500 square kilometers, of which 620 square kilometers are on the Polish side. This covers the total area of ​​the approx. 1,420 square kilometers of the primeval forest area. The area recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site covers 876 square kilometers on both sides of the border. The Belarusian part is fully protected as a national park (Nazyjanalny park Belaweschskaja puschtscha), on the Polish side it is only 15 percent of the forest (Białowieski Park Narodowy).

The national park is the habitat for over 12,000 animal species with 9,000 insect species alone. Many of the animal and plant species are endemic ; H. only to be found in the Białowieża Nature Reserve. There are also some of the tallest deciduous trees in Europe: they are oaks up to 50 meters high and ash trees up to 40 meters high . Because of the minimal human interventions, nature is very diverse: The rotting tree trunks and remains that are not removed create special living conditions that are not found in conventionally managed forests . The origins of the forest go back to 8000 BC. BC back.

history

Until the First World War

Before the First World War , the forest area was one of the most important hunting domains of the Russian tsars . During the war , the region was captured by German troops in August 1915 (see: Great Retreat ) and a military forest administration was set up; Georg Escherich became its director . The jungle became the largest production site in the occupied territories to cover the army's wood needs due to the war. During the three years of military administration, overexploitation was carried out, sawmills were built and one sixth of the trees were felled, including numerous giants of the jungle. In addition, the area was used as an exclusive hunting ground for officers, high-ranking personalities and celebrities and the game population was severely decimated. High dignitaries like Kaiser Wilhelm II were also allowed to shoot bison. After the German occupation forces withdrew at the end of 1918, Polish poachers shot the last of the previously 700 bison in April 1919 .

After the First World War

Since 1918 Białowieża was exclusively on Polish territory. In 1929 the rebuilding of the bison population began. Animals were bought from zoos in Germany and Sweden as well as from the forests of Pszczyna (Pless). 16 bison had been bred by 1939; they survived the Second World War .

After the Second World War

After the end of the war , the Soviet Union annexed eastern Poland . About 60 percent of the Białowieża Primeval Forest came to the Soviet Union as a result . In the eastern part, the Soviet Union maintained a hunting lodge near Wiskuli for the nomenklatura and for state guests. There, on December 8, 1991, the presidents of the Russian Federal Soviet Socialist Republic , the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic , that is Boris Yeltsin , Leonid Kravchuk and Stanislau Shushkevich, met . They signed the so-called Beloveshskaya Pushcha Agreement (also the Beloveshkaya Agreement or the Minsk Treaty ) for the official dissolution of the Soviet Union , whereby a community of Slavic states was founded at the same time . This went on December 21, 1991 in the Commonwealth of Independent States .

Dispute over logging

In May 2016, the Polish Ministry of the Environment, headed by Jan Szyszko ( PiS ), announced plans to fell 188,000 m³ of wood between 2012 and 2021 in the Białowieża Forest District. Previously, a volume of 63,471 m³ was planned for the same period. The decision provoked protests from Polish and international environmental protection associations. EU representatives also expressed their concern. The Ministry justifies the forestry measures with the spread of book printers . However, from the point of view of the environmental associations, this has always been part of the local ecosystem. At the same time, Szyszko noted that there was a shortage of firewood in the area, "while dirty coal has to be imported from Belarus."

In August 2016 the EU Commission ordered an investigation into the wood utilization plans. On April 27, 2017, the EU Commission sent an official warning letter to Poland. On July 13, 2017, the EU Commission announced that it was suing Poland for logging at the Court of Justice of the European Union and applying for an interim order to stop the logging. The decision of the European Court of Justice "came extremely quickly, and it was rare," wrote Der Spiegel . On July 20, 2017, the ECJ ordered the immediate stop of deforestation in the Białowieża Primeval Forest. The judges feared, according to the media, that irreparable damage would be done to the Unesco world natural heritage before the final verdict.

The judges of the European Court of Justice confirmed their judgment in November 2017: Poland must immediately stop active management of the Białowieża Forest. A penalty was threatened for the Republic of Poland in the amount of 100,000 euros per day, on which the hit continues. It was the first time that the ECJ threatened to impose fines in the urgent proceedings. In April 2018, the ECJ confirmed the EU Commission's position that the clearing was illegal. The Polish Environment Minister Henryk Kowalczyk , who has been in office since January, declared that Poland would respect the ECJ ruling.

A German television documentary (2017) confirmed the opinion of the conservationists that the forest administration and the conservative government are not interested in fighting the book printer, as the infected and peeled bark of the felled trees is not burned and the beetle can therefore continue to spread . The majority of the neighboring population in the structurally weak region are on the side of the government and fear for their jobs in forestry. Local residents and the government are criminalizing conservationists who chain themselves to forest machines like harvesters to delay deforestation.

literature

  • Thomas M. Bohn, Aliaksandr Dalhouski, Markus Krzoska: Wisent wilderness and world heritage. History of the Polish-Belarusian National Park of Białowieża. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-412-50943-9 .
  • Janusz Korbel: Puszcza Białowieska - czarno na białym. Białowieża 2009, ISBN 978-83-925199-4-2 .
  • Hans von Auer (Ed. Lothar Tschirpke): Among wisents in the jungle area. Bialowice around 1900. Landbuch Verlag, Hanover 1998, ISBN 3-7842-0560-7 .
  • Christian Kempf: Bialowieza: Primeval Forest of Europe. Setec Tour, Białystok 1997, ISBN 83-906890-1-4 .

See also

Web links

Commons : Białowieża Primeval Forest  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b SPIEGEL ONLINE: Dispute over deforestation: Poland is sawing Europe's legal system - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Politics. Retrieved August 3, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b The struggle for one of the last primeval forests in Europe
  3. ↑ Reactive Monitoring mission to “Białowieża Forest” (Belarus / Poland) . In: unesco.org, September 24, 2018, accessed on September 29, 2018.
  4. ↑ C. Kempf: Bialowieza, Foret Vierge d'Europe , Setec Tour: Białystok, 144 pp.
  5. ↑ Article in The Guardian : Poland starts logging primeval Białowieża forest despite protests (English); accessed on September 6, 2016.
  6. ^ Christian Westerhoff: Big game hunting in the east . FAZ February 14, 2014 (p. 39) (the author is head of the library for contemporary history in the Württemberg State Library).
  7. ↑ Ivo Mijnssen: The displaced act of liberation. The Belowesch Agreement gave the Soviet Union the fatal blow a quarter of a century ago. In a hunting seat in the jungle, the three East Slavic countries agreed on a peaceful separation. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of December 8, 2016, p. 4.
  8. ↑ UNESCO przyjrzy się planom MŚ dot. ratowania Puszczy Białowieskiej. In: Polskie Radio. June 3, 2016, accessed June 14, 2016 (Polish).
  9. ↑ C-441/17. In: curia.europa.eu. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Arthur Neslen and Agence France-Presse: Poland starts logging primeval Białowieża forest despite protests. In: theguardian.com. May 25, 2016, accessed May 30, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Aleksandra Eriksson: Poland seeks support for logging in ancient forest. In: EUobserver . September 1, 2016, accessed September 8, 2016 .
  12. ↑ EU threatens Poland for clearing jungle. In: Österreichischer Rundfunk. April 27, 2017. Retrieved July 8, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Commission calls for immediate cessation of logging in Białowieża Forest in Poland. Press release. European Commission, July 13, 2017, accessed July 16, 2017 .
  14. ↑ tagesschau.de: Poland faces high fines for deforestation. Retrieved November 20, 2017 .
  15. ↑ tagesschau.de: ECJ confirms: clearing is illegal. Retrieved April 17, 2018 .
  16. ↑ The Polish jungle remains , taz.de, April 17, 2018
  17. ↑ Tom Fugmann: Poland's natural heritage in danger - The fight for the last primeval forest in Europe. ( Memento from September 24, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) In: ARD / arte , September 20, 2017.
  18. ^ Galina Petrowskaja: Struggle for Europe's last jungle. In: Deutsche Welle , August 4, 2017.

Coordinates: 52 ° 42 ′ 57.6 "  N , 23 ° 50 ′ 38.4"  E