DO NOT FELL, MUZHIKS!
The article by Veronika Cherkasova,
Published in «Belorusskaya Gazeta» (The Byelorussian newspaper) Newspaper, #371,
February 3, 2003
In Belovezhskaya Pushcha a knock of axes becomes more and more ringing
On the 29th of January 2003 a group of metropolitan journalists has visited the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. This visit was an initiative of a group of journalists and scientists who are worried about the situation of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. The information about commercial fellings on the territory of the State National park in particular makes them very concerned. Participants of this trip have visited quarters of the Pushcha which were damaged by heavy storms in the previous years and by an invasion of the bark beetle.
It was a sad sight at the Pushcha which are after hurricane. Huge trees had fallen down and showed their roots. Solitary pines remained here and there; locals call them «blockheads». The first storm of 27th of February 2002 resulted in the distraction of trees on an area of 180 hectares. It is in fact impossible to estimate the exact area damaged by the second storm in July because it has left spots all over the forest.
Sitting in the bus the wet Pushcha did not look much different form forest near Minsk. Huge amounts of stumps and stacks of fallen down trees pulled attention. «This is a wind-fallen forest», explained our guide: «Here was a sanitary felling. And there a tree was growing too close to a road» … The numerous bonfires, where fine branches were burnt, spread the smell of smoke. We see fresh white stumps here and there. Later local inhabitants told us that lorries took the cut timber out of the Pushcha all weekend before so that the Pushcha would be ready to meet the visitors. The rest of the timber was dragged deeper into forest. The people say, that stumps which would be visible from the road, were accurately covered to hide them for the visitor's eyes. Five lorries with the timber have gone out of the Pushcha to an unknown direction just half an hour before we finished our forest excursion. It is quite probable that they also took out timber which was turned out by the storm or affected by the bark beetle. Nevertheless, at first sight the scale of these sanitary cuttings stunned our imagination.
The bark beetle, which became a real catastrophe here, shows normally different cycles in its development. Here it reached a peak in its density in 2002. The pest has affected approximately twenty percent of the territory of protected forest. According to Nickolai Bambiza, the general director of the State National Park, they fell only trees which are attacked by the beetle. Healthy trees can control this beetle themselves covering it by pitch and so annihilating it. But the Belovezhskaya Pushcha has not got the power to control this pest as the forest became too weak due the drainage measures, which were conducted widely in this region in the past.
Regarding the forest damaged by the bark beetle, there are two points of view. Some specialists state that it is the best to cut and remove the trees affected by the bark beetle, while others think that it is possible to save them with pheromone traps and
THE LOCAL ALPES
The people name the terrain near the Viskuly Village (and the Government Residence) as the Pushcha's Switzerland. It is difficult to understand why the Belarusians compare their country to the Alpine republic as most of them have only seen Switzerland on postcards or pictures. Swiss people will scarcely think of the Montblanc foothills when the see the vicinity of Viskuly. Nevertheless, it is perhaps one of the most comfortable places in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. Asphalt paths lead around the house, where once the destiny of the Soviet Union was decided. In the summer some tourist can use these paths for roller skating.
Some years after the disintegration of the Soviet Union there were few tourists in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. Only recently they began to visit the Pushcha more often, however their amount is much less compared with the past. Hotels, enclosures with wild animals, museum and other local buildings are already, at least more than forty years old. They need reconstruction, but because of the lack of money that is a problem.
During the first world war of 1914 — 1918 the Germans have built approximately 300 kilometers of railways in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. Their aim was to use it, after their victory to transport timber out of the forest. But after the end of the war the Pushcha belonged to Polish territory. They tried to organize the timber felling there, but Polish saws broke when they were used for the cutting powerful trunks of the Pushcha's oaks. The right to harvest timber was then handed to an English company. The cut down trees were taken to the harbour of Gdansk by trains, where they were loaded into steamships and transported to England and France. In Belarus the railways, built by Germans, were removed after the end of the second world war. But on the Polish side the railways were saved and recently 15 kilometers of them were restored. Nowadays they are used for small tourist's trains.
The VOICE of the PEOPLE
It was cold and deserted at the timber processing shop. Big heaps of black wet logs rise on all sides, here and there are stacks of the processed wood which turned yellow. While we were informed in detail about the principles of the sawmill work, the worker Valery Kuchinskiy appeared on the court territory. He said to the journalists that everything written in the newspapers about fellings of the forest is true. He feels ashamed for what is happening in the Park. The administration officials started to fuss and immediately informed the journalists that «this man is sick». They delicately did not specify their diagnosis.
It was possible to «pull out» a small blitz-interview of the general director at a sawmill site.
— Is it true, that local inhabitants are fired from the National Park and timber processing shop while hired workers from other regions are invited in stead of them?
— This shop is a job place for citizens of the Republic of Belarus.
— Is the forest felled?
— Scheduled measures take a place within the Pushcha's territory.
— What does that mean?
— The economic activity is conducted at the places, where it is authorized.
— What does arouse your most negative reaction in the newspaper publications?
— Everything.
— What are the sawmill capacities?
— The quantity of production depends on the qualification of the staff. But the staff is now in the progress of the training.
— How long does a sawmill work?
— Three or four years.
— Have the workers not learned anything at all in four years?
— They have not learned, there was a lot of changing in staff. People left and others came. Everyone wants to seize at once, you understand.
— What sum of income did the Reserve earn last year as a result of the economic activity?
- 3 milliard 798 thousand Rubles.
— With what did you earn this money?
— Tourism, hunting and timber processing have obtained money.
— How much did you earn with timber processing?
- 1 milliard Rubles.
— What was the source of the other 2 milliard 798 thousand Rubles?
— Trade, tourism and hunting.
— How many tourists have visited the Pushcha last year?
— About 50 thousand.
— How much did you earn with hunting?
— I will answer all the questions at a press conference, the director said and with a nod he moved fast out of the group of journalists.
But the press conference, as usually, lasted for less than an hour and basically devoted to the problem of the struggle with bark beetle. Mr. Bambiza has declared that not any illegal fellings were conducted in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. He informed the journalists about the quantity of pheromone traps in the forest and the spruce trap-trees. He said the former administration in the reserve was responsible for the large-scale spreading the bark beetle. Former leaders were not able to object him since the Property Management Department of the President of Belarus, leading the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, was engaged with the accreditation of participants of the tour. People like Evgeniy Smocktunovich, the former general director of the State National Park «Belovezhskaya Pushcha», Zdislav Murav'ev, the expert of the public ecological initiative «Terra-Ñonvenciya», the former head of the Department of Protected Territories at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Protection, Heorhi Kazulka, the former deputy director on science of the State National Park «Belovezhskaya Pushcha», Philosophy Doctor in biology, and more six journalists, which were initiators of the tour, have been taken of the list of accredited persons.
TALIBANS in the PUSHCHA
Because the dismissed employees, accusing the administration for
— Problems of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha were brought into the public only recently. When did they begin in your opinion?
— They have started practically at once after the National Park «Belovezhskaya Pushcha» was turned to subordination of the Property Management Department of the President. In the Soviet period it was considered as a crime to cut down a living tree in the Pushcha. Once, during the regime of Brezhnev (the former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) a Commission from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Protection has visited the Pushcha. They met a pine stump, felled after a tree was destroyed by the lightning in a thunder storm. All leading managers were nearly fired as a consequence of the felling this pine. After the Pushcha was passed to submission of the Property Management Department of the President, the line was taken to obtain an income, so fellings started. But the serious problems have started only recently.
— People say that a sawmill started to work when Bambiza was nominating to manage the Park…
— It is not absolutely correct. A sawmill works here since the end of fifties, but capacities of the timber processing were insignificant in those times. Only in 1998, a large timber processing shop has been built in the village of Kamenyuki, the administrative center of the Park. The earlier sawmill worked in one shift, processing a wood material gained as a result of naturally died trees. Now a
Besides, in Kamenyuki village, the joint Belarusian-Polish enterprise «Belar» functions. The people who lived near the road leading to this enterprise were horrified seeing the big amount of pine out of the forest which was delivered to this shop for processing.
— But, maybe, it was a sick tree?
— Long period there was unofficial rule in the Pushcha: no living tree, even if it is in «an emergency condition», cannot be cut down. Trees have to live and die naturally, just like the people. There are monitoring data for the period of 40 years. At that time, in the sixties, some trees were already sick. There was a wish to fell them, but scientists have defended them and they are still living, they can even live our life through. Nature heals the wounds itself. However, almost at once the new director has issued an order to fell old trees with symptoms of diseases, drying tops or showing weakness. The problem is that this is common practice accepted in timber enterprises, where a living forest is felled. Certainly, there is a mass breeding of the bark beetle in the Pushcha. According to an oral order of the director with the excuse of removal by a storm in 2002 and the rescue of the forest affected by the bug, healthy living trees are felled including
— Did you not try to protest against such treatment to the Pushcha?
— We tried. But everyone, who did not agree with the new policy in the Pushcha, was dismissed. Among them there were both ordinary workers who have refused to fell the protected forest and economists, foresters, research employees, managers. Loyal workers could remain.