Białowieża National Park in Poland

Dolnoslask.....


gumishu...


I think you both realise that the issues concerning the logging crime in the Białowieża forest are real and have been eloquently summarised by Casualobserver in numerous postings over the last few days.....bringing up other issues not related to this topic is just a distraction and would indeed seem to be a 'smoke and mirrors' situation which only serves to distort the real issues of what is happening in the Białowieża forest ...please 'man up' to accept the facts as they are and place trust in the scientists who know about these things rather than the politicians who wish they knew but use they position of power to do what they want....then we can move on.....just think of the good you could both do if you were to change your views...it really sounds like you are both PIS supporters but I am sure even if this were the case it wouldn't cloud your judgement.....

@dolnoslask


hhahaha good joke :)


have you seen the picture from the Bavarian Forest - there are places in Puszcza Białowieska that are almost pure spruce stands - they will look like this if no measures are taken - I wouldn't go to see such a 'forest'

How the hell would you know, you've never been?! You still haven't said where you are getting your information from.

But actually, there aren't pure stands of anything in the forest, as I already told you. It's not a plantation. Some regions contain more conifers than others, but they are becoming more deciduous due to climate change.

Huh? The central argument in this whole Bialowieza issue is between Szyszko and the EU on how to best react to the bark beetle outbreak. That is what it is all about, and that is science. Everything else flows from that question, which is a question of science that the Polish Academy of Sciences have intervened in, because science is their remit.

You'll find that few of the PIS drones at PF have ever even set foot in Europe.


Not yet. That's probably part two of the PIS masterplan for the area, after chopping all the trees down replant and then give the land to their equally corrupt friends on the grounds that those friends supposedly paid for the trees and the only way the regime could afford to pay for those trees would be to stop the 500+ vodka money.

maybe this is science - but it's hardly maths where you can prove things based on axioms


from aerial photos - where large swaths of the forest is dead - you have your photos i have mine

You have your photos, we have our eyes.

Care to prove this? I posted links to the photos I was using to back up my assetitons. Where's yours? How large is 'large swaths', in a forest of 47 sq km?

And tell me, dear gumdrops, how can you tell if the dead trees are spruces from the air? My, what good eyesight you must have! When I was there in May, many of the pines were also dead and dying, because the climate is warming, you see, and it is now favouring broadleaved species that becoming common in the coniferous areas.

Yes, you've been thorough at backing your side, your opponents (dolno, ironside, gumishu) simply rely on assertions from PiS.....

You're winning 6-0 but the other side is throwing a hissy and refusing to come to the net to congratulate you.

I think dolno has been fair, and I respect their standpoint if not necessarily their conclusions - at least they're willing to listen and weigh things up. The other two (if indeed they are two people, seems more like one), well, it must be hell for their mothers to live with them.

To be honest I'm not fully convinced by this one. Likely the truth is somewhere in the middle.

But the whole hysteria of the fatal opposition and EU fascists is of course a political thing. One could think that PB is going to be destroyed soon along with half of the forests in Poland - by the "evil authoritarian government", almost like ISIS blowing up the ancient monuments. Damn fascists and their nasty propaganda.

What's the record of this gov on the forestry and environment in general ? It seems to be the only issue, perhaps the area of the national park in PB should be increased but it's a rather minor and "technical" issue. The logging was going on there each and every year. During 8 years of PO ecologists were protesting hundreds of times and the same folks didn't give a flying feck.

Not really, as PB is a Natura 2000 site, so the EU (and Poland) are committed to ensuring its protection as part of the EU nature framework - it is the core plank of the EU Habitats Directive. Natura 2000 puts them all under an obligation to maintain them as 'the best of the best' examples of habitat. If a member state then damages a Natura 2000 site, then the EU is obliged to act, as all parties have agreed to look after them. It's not like the EU is picking a fight, it's more loike someone is breaking one of the window in the church.


Well, that is actually the concern, that the damage will be so extensive that the forest will be irrevocably changed, and what is special about it will be destroyed. Things were moving in a general direction for about 15 years, now they've swung right back the other way.


Without being overly dramatic, to UNESCO (and scientists) that is exactly what it is like. It is the destruction of cultural and scientific heritage. That's why it was listed by UNESCO.


Surprised you ask this, as the record is very poor. There is the Bialowieza issue, but also the 'Szyszko law' fiasco (feeling of trees all over Poland, which had to be reversed), and there's aslo the opposition to renewable energy and the promotion of coal.


Yes, but there was a new management plan that would limit the impact. Szyszko has tripled the quota, and removed all the safeguards to protect and restore the forest ecosystem (leaving deadwood, not felling trees >100 years old).


There was quite a bit of noise actually. There was a vociferous campaign to extend the National Park, led by many who are now protesting (Kocham Puszcza). It was this pressure that forced the compromise that PO made with the new management plan.

What has happened now is a totally different league, reversing all of the agreements and compromised of the past 10 years, and threatening extreme and permanent damage to the forest system. That is why national and international protests have been so loud, to match the perceived threat and direction of movement.

Please cut down on the number of quotes in your posts

Don't know how accurate these figures are, but a post doing the rounds on Facebook claims that public employees have the following salaries:

Police = 4033 zl
Firefighter = 3334 zl
Paramedic = 3032 zl
State Forestry Worker = 7772 zl

Can anyone confirm/deny this?

Here's a vice episode on this topic youtu.be/wbI4ipw2tCE

oh a coal enemy - how telling

An environmental friend.

Once it's gone, it's gone.

we still have enough coal for the next 50 years if not more

by that time new technologies will be discovered that will enable tapping to the energy of the vacuum - and it will be a bright era in the history of humankind

The 'it' does not refer to the amount of hydrocarbons underground.


We have new, clean and safe technology now, without "tapping to the energy of the vaccuum" whatever that is.

and not reliable - if the wind blows you have a lot of energy - even more than our grid can handle (even more than German grid can handle hence their insistence of us letting their energy surpluses into our grid) - if it stops blowing oh well: you should buy big lithium battery stacks or otherwise you have no energy (20-sty stopień zasilania)

are they talking about leśniczy (forester) or a robotnik leśny (forest worker)? foresters earn on average 6,600zł: wynagrodzenia.pl/moja-placa/ile-zarabia-lesniczy, but forest workers only 1,500zł:

moja-pensja.pl/zarobki/666,ile-zarabia-Robotnik-le%C5%9Bny

the forester should be the guy responsible for an area of forest, so for him to earn more is comprehensible. The average robotnik earning 6,6k or even 7,7k - very probably not. Others I found:


one article from this year claims the average Firefighter salary to be 4125 zł brutto:
superbiz.se.pl/wiadomosci-biz/zobacz-ile-zarabiaja-strazacy-infografika_949262.html


the officer on the street seems to take home only 2,500zł:
superbiz.se.pl/wiadomosci-biz/zarobki-policjantow-w-polsce-ile-dostaje-drogowka-i-komendant_939496.html


a bit lower: wynagrodzenia.pl/moja-placa/ile-zarabia-sanitariusz

with all the public sector wages, tiny base salaries can be deceiving though since usually a lot of dodatki - supplements - are added. But you will not - like anywhere else - get rich by working in a public sector job.

Yes, it's reliable.


It's a bit more complicated than that, however batteries play a big part in any energy supply.

No need to use something as primitive, dangerous and dirty as coal these days...

yeah winds are reliable - omg - just listen to yourself

no need for huge battery stacks in coal powered energy system my friend

Wind generators are actually rather pricey to build and maintain. Without significant subsidies most people won't be too interested in switching over.

They must still be done, plus solar, tidal and all those.


All the money scrimped by continuing to use fossil fuels will be as nothing when man-made global warming has reduced Bialowieza to a desert.


An irrelevance. No need for coal fired powerstations any more, and every reason to scrap them.

@jon357

Gradually yes society does need to make such changes in the coming decades. At the moment though people and companies won't make such an investment if they can't afford it and there's no subsidies. If there isn't a financial incentive most companies esp publicly traded ones won't consider such an action. Furthermore oil is the only thing keeping certain countries in the Arab and African afloat

It's 'pracownik lasow panstwowych'.


Oh, another ad hominem attack and attempt to shift the conversation away from logging in Bialowieza, how telling. We're still waiting for your aerial photos where you say that you can identify the species of dead trees across "large swathes", from the air (lol!), in a forest that you've never been to (post #216).

Re coal, the question from G Undercover was 'What's the record of this gov on the forestry and environment in general ?', not whether I like or loathe coal. Coal is thought by quite a few grown ups to very much not be environmentally friendly.

Companies think about money - companies especially will fight tooth and nail to keep making a fast buck at society's expense. Hence legislation is necessary in order to achieve the best interests of society - and that is to minimise (probably too late to reverse) man-mde climate change.

Fossil fuels have to stop, no matter how hard it hurts profiteers.

Once Bialowieza and the other forests are denuded, they're never coming back.

I see, you don't know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a premise that states no human inference into the forests is the only correct way of going about it. The right way.

I have been calling it a scientific theory that has no been proven empirically. I lost you there because for you it is a dogma that cannot be questioned.

The EU can take a jump it is not their concern.

Let see what the current gov is all about. You're too biased and involved to be trusted.


Funny, I knew you will say it.

@jon357

I agree. In theory I think we can reverse some of the damage through planting tons and tons of trees. That will help eat up co2 and increase o2 levels.or at least if were still going to use fossil fuels we should try to make the switch to more natural gas which isn't as harmful as coal and oil and still cost effective.

I don't think that well see oil being pumped solely for plastics, medicines, etc and not for fuel in our lifetimes. Too significant part of the economy for dozens upon dozens of countries including the us -

i.e. Texas. Hybrids are a good step forward but atm there's too much riding on fossil fuels. Coal mining has been gradually slowing. Nonetheless there's plenty of countries as well as some states in the us like w Virginia who rely on coal as significant part of their economy. Now other power sources have taken the place of coal. Back in the day though coal was used for heating trains energy almost everything kind of like how oil, natural gas, etc.

Im a nature lover. I go hiking fishing hunting (I hunt w bow and arrow now more challenging but more fun imo) boating kayaking rock climbing etc all the time. I've seen a lot of the changes over the years to some of the places i frequent - water is more polluted, the fish even taste a lil different, there's less trees, more and more garbage esp plastic bottles. Stuff like that pisses me off.

At the very least. The impact of human development on nature over the last hundred years is larger than during the rest of human existence.

Nobody likes harsh laws, however there's a lot we have to ban, and ban now.