Poland's economic future?

Poland does not have communities - it has villages and towns instead Atch

44 000 visitors a year makes it not much more than 100 a day - and you think communities can live off the tourist traffic and try to compare it to a coal mine which can give jobs to hundreds of people - yeah you are realistic indeed

Log the entire Białowieża Forest out then and build a coal mine in that place instead. I'm sure your locals would be more than happy.

But, there still could be some problem with getting the blessing of JK for such a project project. You may perhaps have not noticed, but JK has withdrawn his blessing for this damage-doer and idiot Jan Szyszko to continue in office as Environment Minister ...

Hey that what Germany is doing right now. Where is EU? Ziem castrated by commies. lol!

there is no coal under Białowieża - anymore questions?

44k per year is 120 people per day. Tourist outlay in Poland is 271 zl per day (budgetyourtrip.com), which gives 11.8 million zl per year. If you take off 25% for taxes (going to the state), that's an average local Polish income of (4275 zl per month, before tax) for 174 people, which is pretty good for that part of the country. When you add on the additional local jobs of shops and services where those wages are spent, and the redistribution of the 25% taxes, the benefits are pretty large.

And the tourists wont create noise and dust for local people, will be 'clean' jobs, and wont create smog over Rzeszow and Krakow that will kill the locals.


There is shale gas/oil deposits under Bialowieza.

most of these tourist are low budget tourists or zero spender tourists because they are school trips - be more realistic sometimes pal


there is thousands of square kilometers of gas shale elsewhere in Poland - no need to touch Białowieża

How do you know that? Can you back up that statement with any evidence, like I did?

The figure I quoted is an average. Some low spenders will pay less (camp site, sandwiches), some high spenders will pay more (hotels, restaurants). But the average is 271 zl.

Ecotourism is pretty big business, and Poland is a major destination for westerners, although the reputation is being hammered. Bilaowieza, Biebrza, Hel are iconic destinations.

Apparently it's more like 100,00 visitors per year.


Here are some actual figures on the income derived from the forest annually. This is from a report published almost ten years ago, in 2009, so those figures would have increased since:

Entrance fees: 100,000 euros
Hunting Licences: 100,000
Horse Riding: 150,000

Plus

Mushroom crop: 180,000
Honey: 100,000

What makes me want to weep with frustration is this pattern of stubborn resistance and negativity by certain kinds of Polish people, like yourself Gumi, who simply want to be awkward about everything and are contemptuous and scornful about ways of doing things that have been proven to work elsewhere. Ireland gets a staggering 5 billion euro each year from tourism and about 5% of that is from Eco-Tourism and goes into the pockets of the communities who live in those areas. Now if a tiny country like Ireland can make that kind of money, just think of the possibilities for Poland.

Isn't it just the most charming thing ever?! They're like little teddy bears filled with army ants!

This is an old tactic, some people think if they never put anything out there and just relentlessly criticize those that do then that makes them look smart. It's commie bred cynicism (one of the worst and longest lasting legacies of the PRL).

Well said Maf - who can possibly want to rip up Poland's most beautiful and best known asset. Even if it did create jobs then life is about more than that - we are not the only creatures on earth and we have to share it. I would have thought people who preach about Christian values would understand that.

People who dislike beauty.... or who have none in their lives and don't want anyone else to have any?

A lot of posters here are essentially dogs in the manger (in Polish: psy ogrodnika)

we are not talking about Białowieża cms but some rather obscure Poleski National Park of which allegedelly the swamp is a part where an even more obscure little bird lives - and the whole park generates (according to Atch) more money from mushroom pickers and hunters (who would've thought you can hunt in a National Park) than on actual tourists - Atch has no data on how much money the tourists actually leave in the communities though (and not the park itself) - which could be miniscule as I pointed out and gave reasons why

Oh dear. I was! The figures are for Białowieża - BUT the principle remains. Apparently there are 150 species of birds including several endangered eagles. You can attract people from all over the world who have an interest in that kind of thing and they do bring money to the local area whether you want to accept it or not.

the figure you quoted is an average for Poland and may be completely irrelevant to the case we are talking about - maybe you have heard about Krasiejów Jurrasic Park in Opole region - it's a day trip - no need to overnight - people come there by cars - most visitors are still school trips who arrive on busses - maybe they will buy a snack or two appart from the entry fee - that's the definition of low spending - let's assume that 10 per cent of visitors to the Poleski National Park are foreingers who actually need accomodation etc (which is in my opinion a hugely overblown figure) - and they actually spend 200 PLN per day there (which is doubtful) - that leaves you with not much more than 2 million PLN a year - sure maybe 10 families could live well on that money but we are talking about hundreds of people who can earn their living if a coal mine is built in the vicinity and the municipalities would gain much more on taxes from mining (ever heard of Kleszczów near Bełchatów - it is the richest municipality in Poland (per capita) thanks to the taxes on the coal mine) - Poleski Park Narodowy will always be an obscure place far out in the sticks that hardly anyone knows about except for the locals that is difficult to reach as well


coal mines don't create smog my ecologist pal for the simple reason that they hardly burn any coal

Did I address my post with those remarks to you? I don't recall it. I must have a good reason or if you just picking on my post addressed to somebody else, maybe I should've addressed this post to you?

Now, you're not allowed to question your betters. Is that clear? True Polish patriots living in Norway rather than in Poland should realise it as soon as possible. Such patriots from WSI should hang.

If you don't like it kiss a horse under his tail and to chase down aftertaste eat a pretzel.


Why this sudden change from discussing Białowieża Forest to discussing Poleski NP, Gumi? Doesn't Białowieża fit into your theory?

I originally responded to Casual Observer's post about some marsh in Poleski National Park in which he complained that a rare species of a bird inhabits and may be endangered - Białowieża was a later distraction and not by me

The problem is that there are still a significant number of people in Poland struggling for their basic survival needs and the last thing on their minds is ecology or whether they're being poisoned by the smog plus if you're already a smoker, which many Poles are, then you don't really care whether living in Warsaw, you breathe in the equivalent of 1,000 cigarettes a year or four times that in Kraków.

present the hard figures for Poleski Park Narodowy and we will talk

And maybe they're relevant. In the absence of better data, they are the average figures for Poland. Now, ok, let's take your scenario of fewer paying tourists, but then the region (SE Poland) also has lower average wages, so even if you scale down the values of less tourist spend to the local average wage, it is still supporting large numbers of people.


Why so low, you've just plucked that out of the air to suit your argument. Why not 85% or 99%? You've got no idea whether your 10% is closer to the truth than my 99%, so let's not make up stuff.

People visiting that fairly remote region will of course be over-nighting. Ecotourists are generally out at dawn, as that is when the wildlife is most active, so of course that includes overnight stays.

Coal mining might employ more people in a short burst, until the coal is exhausted, but ecotourism is *renewable* for much longer, and they're cleaner jobs, and the industry wont leave vast scars on the landscape and throw up tonnes of dust.

Coal mining does indeed cause smog when you burn the stuff in Rzeszow and Krakow and other towns, which I mentioned.

I already did, post 126.

in the absence of specific data broad general average data may be completely misleading and therefore can't really be called data

you only presented how many people visited the Poleski National Park not how much money they left in the Park itself and it's surrounding - you presented exatcly nothing then


burning coal is the cheapest way to heat your home in Poland, many people cannot afford other methods - so genius appeal to the European union for hefty subsidies to those other methods or shut up

btw there is a quite good way to estimate how many foreign tourists visited Poleski National Park - go to youtube and check how many videos were taken there by non-Poles, I bet there won't be even 10 of these (I will be actually surprised if there is a single one)

You can download for free two very interesting articles here:

researchgate.net/publication/315833692_Zasoby_naturalne_Poleskiego_Parku_Narodowego_a_rozwoj_turystyki

researchgate.net/publication/312499760_MOTIVES_FOR_TOURISM_IN_THE_AREA_OF_THE_POLESKI_NATIONAL_PARK

Of course you won't because you're just an old Moaning Michael.

In some ways I don't blame you. Poland is a very harsh place to live even now. It's fine as long as you're under fifty, healthy and employed. But lose your job when you're 45 and live in the sticks and that's pretty much that. But it's not over till the fat lady sings, you have to believe that it's possible for things to get better and building a factory or a coal mine is not the answer. It's just not that simple these days.

As for the EU, blame your own useless government and your own apathetic electorate for voting in a shower of eejits who have no clue how to budget or make social policy.

And I presented how much the average tourist spends in Poland per day. So we have number of people, and the average that a tourist spends per day. It's a reasonable basis for ballpark figures. And the ballpark was 11.8 million zl into the regional economy from ecotourism to one "obscure" reserve.


That's the result of a combination of national policy and international factors. The govt could easily make other methods cheaper if it wished. It's a political decision.


Why so aggressive? It is the Polish govt that gives coal 920 million euros in subsidy per year (odi.org/publications/10788-cutting-europes-lifelines-coal-tracking-subsidies-10-countries).

That's why coal's cheap - people are not paying the market value, because the govt is paying part of the cost. But the air pollution from that coal is pretty terrible - it kills people. There will have to be a switch away from coal at some point. Unless Poland totally disengages from global affairs then it will be increasingly penalised for emitting carbon (tariffs etc), as that's the way the world is moving.

Oh, c'mon! What if the tourists are mostly over 60? They're hardly likely to be uploading videos to Youtube. You're sounding desperate now!

Poleski is on TripAdvisor. It's in the 'bible' of birdwatching tourism for Poland (Birding in Poland, Sterno 2015) as a 3* destination (top rating). It's not as famous as Biebrza, but that means there is potential for much greater tourist capacity, to reach the levels of Biebrza or Bialowieza.

the avarage foreign tourist visits Kraków, Warsaw, Gdańsk and Wrocław not a ****-hole on the Ukrainian border my dear ecologist - so your data are meaningless - also I guess (and it is not a wild guess) that your data on how much a tourist spends in Poland refers to foreing tourists and not Polish tourists - and if you assume that most tourists to visit Poleski Park Narodowy are Polish pupils on school trips the data is even more meaningless

and I trust the gut feelings of the local municipality authorities in the area - they definitely have a good estimate of how much they earn from foreing tourists and tourism in general

I rarely agree with you lately but on this statement I have to.

I remember years ago I tried to establish business relationships with some Polish companies-they simply weren't interested. They weren't even bothered to scope out the opportunity for themselves.

I grind my teeth at the incompetence of the Polish Tourist Office who just do not do enough to sell this beautiful country to foreign tourists

And I've told you that ecotourism is a major business and Poland is a major destination in Europe. Have a look at the number of guidebooks available on Amazon, and the number of Polish ecotourism companies.

There are studies on this stuff:
cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/20173180780

And take note of this one:
tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14724049.2016.1142556?journalCode=reco20

For rural regions away from Krakow, Warsaw etc, ecotourism can be a major aid for development. Look at Bialowieza village and the surrounding area. Now, just imagine if that was developed and managed properly in these "sh***hole" places you refer to in the southeast. Poland has been a hot destination for ecotourism for about 30 years, and it's very placed placed for this industry.

What is it that the gov't subsidizes coal? It means that we all subsidize coal, but we could well subsidize some renewable form of energy instead.


How do you know what this gut feeling is?