Logging spells danger for Europe’s last primeval forest FEATURE 09/14/2010

Logging spells danger for Europe’s last primeval forest

FEATURE

09/14/2010
BIALOWIEZA — Deep in the forest, along a dirt road off-limits to tourists, the trunks of centuries-old fir trees lie waiting to be hauled to a sawmill — felled giants from Europe’s last primeval forest.

Further in, old oak and ash trunks wait to be turned into planks, furniture or matchsticks: proof, say ecologists, of illicit logging that is endangering the ancient Bialowieza forest in eastern Poland.

“Some of the trees have been cut down illegally by Poland’s National Forests service, in violation of European Union legislation,” contends Polish environmentalist Adam Bohdan, who with other campaigners has raised the alarm in Warsaw and Brussels.

State forestry officials deny any logging for commercial purposes in Bialowieza, saying only diseased or infested trees are being felled in the vast woodland area which is home to wild bison, lynx and wolves.

“We are also ecologists,” says Andrzej Antczak, head of the Bialowieza forest service. “We log only to protect the forest from bark beetles — insects that pose a grave danger to trees. We want to help nature defend itself and we do it according to Polish legislation,” he insists..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100914com7.html