Yesterday, the Ministry of Climate and Environment presented the Management Plan for the World Heritage Site – Białowieża Forest. The document is unacceptable to local communities, foresters and local governments from the municipalities of the Białowieża Forest. The plan is a prelude to introducing a national park across the entire area.
Work on the document had been ongoing for many years. In 2023, everything had essentially been agreed upon. After years of negotiations, it was decided that about 14 percent of the 63,000 hectares would fall into the so-called fourth zone, where forestry management would be allowed. Representatives of local governments and foresters accepted this solution with difficulty. The document landed on Paulina Hennig-Kloska’s desk and was thrown out. Non-governmental organizations that gained influence in the Ministry of Climate concluded that it was impossible to reconcile tree felling with observing natural ecological processes on an area of 63,000 hectares.
These groups have consistently campaigned under the slogan “The Entire Forest as a National Park”, as well as for excluding as many forests as possible from economic use. Local governments and residents opposed this. Yet yesterday, the ministry misrepresented the facts.
“The plan was created in close cooperation with the local community and experts. Thanks to this, 96% of the Polish part of the Białowieża Forest will be handed over to natural processes. Previously, it was only 37%. We are excluding traditionally understood forestry and hunting. Few such areas remain in the world, and we must protect them”, Paulina Hennig-Kloska wrote yesterday.
The problem, however, is that local governments did not accept these solutions and protested against them. The same goes for foresters and the local community. There was more distortion as well. – After consultations with local governments, we know that this place is actually developing towards tourism. We remember the times when the town of Hajnówka had a saw in its coat of arms. Those were the times when the settlement that arose there drew from the forest around it. This is an excellent example of remarkable evolution. Development that is symbolic today – said Deputy Minister Mikołaj Dorożała. The problem, however, is that recent years have brought a collapse of the region. Many municipalities in the county are now among the fastest depopulating in Poland. Dubicze Cerkiewne is the fastest depopulating municipality in the country (five times more deaths than births), and in nearby Kleszczele, only four children were born last year (in the entire municipality). This is a region with high unemployment, where every job is worth its weight in gold. The residents understand this, but their voice was not heard by the Ministry of Climate and Environment.
Let us add that tourism is also severely limited by tensions at the border and the fact that a route used by Belarusian services and Polish NGOs to move migrants towards Western Europe runs through the Białowieża Forest. This significantly hinders normal tourism activity.
However, Hennig-Kloska’s plan was created to somewhat appease UNESCO experts. During their last mission to Poland, they concluded that the Białowieża Forest is in critical condition. Importantly, they made this assessment seven years after forestry management was abandoned in the forest. UNESCO considers there to be a number of critical threats to the area, with the most significant being the wall and, for example, invasive species increasingly colonizing the forest.
The document will now have to be implemented. Already yesterday, NGOs stated that the best solution would be to designate the Białowieża Forest as a national park. And that will most likely be the ministry’s next step, which claims that this proposal is supported by the overwhelming majority of citizens.