Gold of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha

The article by Valeriy Dranchuk,
Published in «Svobodnye Novosti Plus» (Free News Plus) Newspaper, #7(22),
April 10–24, 2003

«Dear Sirs and Comrades! For the last six to eight years it was necessary to continuously call for the aid of global experience, to toll the bells and to sound the alarm to escape the approaching threats to the World Heritage Site. But you kept silent and you helped pillage spread over the rests of the Great Forest. You hunted for wallets stashed with banknotes, trading the most important treasure of the Nation and the Heritage of humankind. It is true you »walked on gold«, looking greedily around. But it was an optical illusion — you have not seen the real gold of the Pushcha. Today you are compelled to show the public the „lunar landscapes“ of the unique forest, but even so you will never tell people the truth. I unmask you as the ones responsible for encouraging and spreading incompetent management„.

Now it's the third month since the journalists of Belarusian and foreign mass-media visited the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, and witnessed an unprecedented expansion of economic and commercial activity, occurring not just anywhere, but on a specially protected natural territory with status of World Heritage Site. The background is the following: twelve «quills», writing for protection of the environment, have addressed the UN Representative in Minsk with a proposal to organize a joint action, namely a press-tour to the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, where, as it is known, there are constant violations of many UN conventions, most importantly of Conventions on world natural and cultural heritage protection, as well as violations of the Law «About specially protected territories and objects„.

What did authors of the letter want? It was a simple thing: is it better to visit the Pushcha and to see the situation at «the place of the incident» or to talk and argue for a long time? The approximate schedule was the following: the first day we see what they have to show us, then for the second day we choose where we want to be taken and, the third day we sit at a round table.

The meeting with Neil Bune

The Head of the UN Office, Neil Bune, having met with journalists on the eve of the visit, has said that his organization is ready to participate in a dialogue between the government and public concerning the problems of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha and promised that his party will give all necessary assistance. To say the truth, looking back to the mandate and having a small hint about the aggravating circumstances of the governing authorities, gave us a reason to doubt the great opportunities and the eagerness of the international organization to help those who today act for the rescue of the Pushcha and the protection of its population. Everything the diplomat said could certainly be very promising, but only if accompanied by a change of the regime, as my colleague noticed.

Below are some important considerations.

Neil Bune has said that the Belovezhskaya Pushcha as a site representative for the world biodiversity has to be saved in the original form. The high status of the reserve, its protection regime and an appropriate management level can help accomplish these.

According to the interlocutor, the news, which he has got from recent information sources and publications, cause the extreme anxiety, however, the experts «in close cooperation with the Belarusian authorities will analyze and scrupulously estimate actuality or groundlessness of statements». Regarding the press-tour to the Pushcha, the head of the UN Office welcomes its organization within the framework of a dialogue promoting the solution to disagreements. However, he will first discuss it with the government. Certainly, the participation of his organization is possible as long as it will not contradict the mandate of the UN Office. According to Neil Bune, an international mission for scientific and technical expertise is not excluded, if the official party, that is the Belarusian government, will ask for it. The public initiative group «Terra-Convention„ would like to see this mission in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha as well.

I understand this is what the diplomat told the journalists. But you see this conversation is about conventional obligations which are ignored by the government, is about measures of protection of the World Heritage Site being under the threat of degradation and libertarianism! Is a stronger intervention and punishment for the guilty really not appropriate here? It seemed to me that the UN representative had incomplete or false information, that he knew only part of the truth about the condition of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha as the World Heritage. The other part of the truth is either hidden or well «packed». Therefore the proposal of twelve journalists did not make him join the «challenge„ of the public or, more importantly, begin immediate actions for restoration of international norms of the nature conservation in the protected forest. He is a source of restraint and too balanced promises: to clarify “together with the Belarusian authorities"…

Lesson of a lie

Confronted with the situation, authorities were not at all shy when it came to making their own rules of the game. The decision to organize a «dialogue» was almost spontaneous and unexpected.

Shortly before this decision, an adviser of the head of the UN Office, Vladimir Scherbakov caught up with me away from Minsk to tell me the «breaking news»: in two days, the Presidential Property Management Department will organize a tour to the Pushcha, putting a bus or even two ones if it is necessary, at the disposal of all interested persons, making it possible to gather the «alternative party« consisting of journalists and representatives of the scientific public.

But on Monday we had a «cold shower»: I and many others could not receive accreditation, while Mrs. Zhurankova & company made the list themselves… It is easy to guess what the interceptors of the public initiative feared. One former academician, presently official of the Property Management Department of the President has sharply answered me by phone «You already visited the Pushcha many times, you have seen and described everything, it is enough, let's give opportunities to others …«

How was it possible to foresee such a turn? This was appreciated unequivocally as treachery of authorities, who do not wish to be exposed to attacks from the public. Consequently this one-day (more precisely, several hours) tour was arranged, first of all, for the journalists. The idea was simple: to make the mass media come out with a superficial answer, to sow the seeds of confusion and muddle the public opinion, to create a meeting with ostensibly scientific character on the background of arbitrariness existing in the Pushcha today, as well as to hinder Neil Bune's participation to the press-expedition (this tour coincided with the beginning of his short-term foreign business trip in a strange way). Those were the main motives of the «organizers» of the expedition. Fortunately, not all of these came true.

Certainly it is a pity I could not be there personally to supervise the embodiment of the shameful scenario. I could not get on the official bus, so I went to Brest by train. Fellow journalists took me from Brest and drove me to Pushcha. The Park's protection guard tried very hard to stop me: the employees warned me, some times with zeal, that I have no right to take part in the press conference. Both roads and entrances to the central office were strictly guarded against «saboteurs». Neither the former general director, nor his deputy on science got access to the press conference so they could not participate to the «dialogue«. Though our initiative was being mutilated in the true sense of the word, it was already impossible to change the situation. A facade of the Pushcha was briefly presented to the participants. Journalists saw the industrial zone, the result of the activity of presidential managers who stubbornly tried to hide the ill treatment given to international laws and conventional obligations, the economic libertarianism within the protected territory, the arbitrariness and chaos. I thank journalists of »The Belarusian Business Newspaper«, »The Belarusian Newspaper», «The National Will», and other mass media for partially learning the lesson of a lie, for the thoughtful and not indifferent response they gave in their editions. I am sure, this is to be continued. You see, in the name of the Pushcha, we are «campaigning against illiteracy». We can see through the facade.

The conventional responsibility

It is ten years since the Belovezhskaya Pushcha became a site of world importance and now the question is whether we are able to reach this level and understand who the owner of this site is today. Claims, which I addressed and continue to address the managing bodies of the National Park, comprise items of the conventional responsibility, as well as criteria of correspondence between the management of the Park and the Belovezhskaya Pushcha's World Heritage status.

For example, there is the Parisian Convention (thank God, it's thirty years old!) on protection of the world cultural and natural heritage. It is a brilliant document concerning ecological rights, and it is subscribed by Belarus. Belovezhskaya Pushchà was included in this Heritage List; therefore conventional obligations become a special concern. But the more you get a grasp of the content of clauses and items and study this document, the more you gain the obvious impression of the nasty timber-harvesting enterprise «status» of the Pushcha, of the wild outburst of commercial activity, of the enslaving of local population, and of the administration's intimidations and violence. We distance ourselves more and more from the Convention signed, I repeat — by our own actions, instead of coming closer to it. We unjustly and consciously put the Convention aside, trampling upon its letter of law and humanitarian sense. This is most visible in respect to clauses which concern the national protection and international cooperation in the interests of the heritage. There is no kind of aspiration for the benefit of beautiful nature, national pride, science and ecological education, only for the opposite of these …

And there is more. Clause 27 of the mentioned convention, for example, states that a member country is obliged to widely inform the public about dangers that threaten a heritage. As far as I remember, managers said over and over again about prime values of the Pushcha being folded in their «tender» arms. Both incompetence of the management of specially protected territories and consequences of this managing provided by the Property Management Department of the President, are more and more obvious today. For some six — eight long years the employees of this management structure hid the true situation of the Pushcha, speculating on a problem of dying spruce (it is worth mentioning the construction of a high-efficiency sawmill!) and receiving income from commercial hunts, sales and barters. Today they try to back out from responsibility and to put all blames on drainage, bark beetle invasion, windstorms etc.

Dear Sirs and Comrades! For the last six to eight years it was necessary to continuously call for the aid of global experience, to toll the bells and to sound the alarm to escape the approaching threats to the World Heritage Site. But you kept silent and you helped pillage spread over the rests of the Great Forest. You hunted for wallets stashed with banknotes, trading the most important treasure of the Nation and the Heritage of humankind. It is true you «walked on gold», looking greedily around. But it was an optical illusion — you have not seen the real gold of the Pushcha. Today you are compelled to show the public the «lunar landscapes« of the unique forest, but even so you will never tell people the truth. I unmask you as the ones responsible for encouraging and spreading incompetent management.

The public initiative group «Terra-Convention», resorting to authoritarian documents of international ecological acts (to which Belarus subscribed), proposes and insists on the following solutions:

  • to subordinate the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park to the nature protection department of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection;
  • to develop a Code of Regulations for the National Park «Belovezhskaya Pushcha» in accordance with the national and international nature conservation legislation;
  • to stop economic and commercial activities in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha that contradict the Law on specially protected natural areas and sites, certain international conventions, rules and recommendations of the European Diploma;
  • to forbid commercial hunting within the territory of the National Park;
  • to remove the high-efficiency sawmill from Kamenyuki village, and to move other kinds of economic activities that contradict the main goals and objectives of the National Park, outside the jurisdiction of the Park;
  • to increase the park's budget for the Belovezhskaya Pushcha to 85 per cent so that the rest supplied others in the form of activity, which would not contradict norms of ecological ethics, becomes 15 per cent (instead of 35 per cent as now).
  • to increase the area of the strict protection zone (Wilderness Protection Zone) to 50 per cent or more of Pushcha's territory (for reference purposes it currently amounts to 18 per cent) and to take measures to expand the World Heritage Site «Belovezhskaya Pushcha» over the entire area of the protected zone;
  • to strengthen and enlarge the scientific department, including development of new activities (scientific tourism, publishing, and other);
  • to elaborate and submit for public consideration a plan of sustainable management of Belovezhskaya Pushcha up to the year 2020.

    We call on the international community:

  • to carry out an independent expertise of Belovezhskaya Pushcha as World Natural Heritage.
  • to discuss, based on the results of examination, the proposal to include Belovezhskaya Pushcha into the special list of World Heritage in Danger (for reference purposes 2 lists of threatened world heritage exist).

    Pictures of the author are showing:

    1. From morn till night they are supplying the powerful sawmill, constructed recently in Kamenyuki, the administrative centre of the National Park.
    2. The next project threatening the World Heritage Site is construction of two artificial lakes in the Pushcha. «Great fishing» has already started; this moor and the road appeared a year ago, in connection with a visit of the Kremlin grandfather.
    3. Inhabitants of the world important forest do not go barefoot, and even when they go in the depth of the woods they do not prefer all walks.
    4. «The ecological path» has brought me to the bathhouse with pond, lilies and boat. The gentle touch of primary nature was reminded to me thanks to an encounter with a local armed guard.

    Valeriy Dranchuk
    Journalist, founding member of the public initiative group «Terra-Convention»
    Contact phone: +375 (29) 65 66 67 0