The ecologist Valery Dranchuk supposes astonishment of the society when it will open the scales of tragedy in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park
The article by Marat Gorevoi,
Published in BelaPAN Company,
January 30, 2003
The Property Management Department of the President of Belarus plans to organize a series of press conferences in state national parks of the country including the Pripyatski National Park during this year. It was announced for journalists during the press conference held in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park on January 29.
The Property Management Department of the President together with the National Press Centre organized of that trip. Their representatives repeatedly stated that present press conference is scheduled and it is no relations to the initiative of the group of journalists concerned with the information about commercial forest cuttings in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha and who actually offered to organize the
Many of these journalists including the ecologist-journalist and the editor of the independent ecological newspaper «Belovezhskaya Pushcha» Valery Dranchuk, were not able to participate in this press conference. Moreover, the former Director General of the National Park Evgeny Smoktunovich and former Deputy Director on Science, Philosophy Doctor in Biology Heorhi Kazulka were also not able to enter the National Park. Mr. Smoktunovich and Dr. Kazulka were stopped at the gate entrance by the Park's guard, while Valery Dranchuk, used the journalist certificate, nevertheless could pass to an administrative building of the park where he has associated with colleagues - the mass-media representatives.
He, in particular, has declared that after the Reserve «Belovezhskaya Pushcha» has got a status of the National Park, «the financial and industrial lobby has become firmly established» in this most ancient forests. «This is why there were problems with accreditation of journalists and experts for participation in the present press conference», he has declared. «At the same time, those who were invited to the conference were simply entered in error or misled. The Pushcha is cut and the wood is removed out. Today local inhabitants with a mental anguish told me about this. As a result of ecological terrorism, only facade is left remembering the former greatness of the Pushcha. Today people in the Pushcha live under fear to lose their jobs in this forest province. And it is true because the family can remain without job and money if they say the word of truth. People worry about the future of protected forest and ask public to stand up for the Pushcha».
Valery Dranchuk together with members of the Ecological Public Initiative «Terra-Ņonventsia» that was created to enforce international nature protection acts, conventions and agreements signed by Belarus, plans to deal with this problem in details. He hopes that public will achieve «a transparency of the situation in Pushcha already in the present year».
Meantime, during the press-conference General Director of the State National Park Nickolai Bambiza has accused former leaders of the Park with responsibility for large-scale spreading the bark beetles within the Reserve. Thus Mr. Bambiza has declared: «Any illegal cuttings are not conducted within protected forest areas. We worry how to manage forest infected by bark beetle and windstorms».