HAVE DEMONS MOVED in the PROTECTED FOREST?
The article by Victor Malishevskiy & Yuliya Slutzkaya,
Published in «Komsomol'skaya Pravda v Belarusi» (The Komsomol Truth in Belarus) Newspaper, #96/22 (23041),
May 30, 2003
Over the last years Belovezhskaya Pushcha has left behind a terrible hurricane, bark beetle invasion and press scandals
The Newspaper «Komsomol Truth in Belarus» wrote about the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, a symbol of the Belarusians, more than once. «Talibans» are owners of the Pushcha; originating from the Pushcha, these people are ready to cut the relic forest just to make money. The Pushcha is our sacred heritage where it is forbidden to touch any living or dead trees. Science, not tourism, must be an owner of this sacred place. And for sure, it is impossible to saw a live, hundreds of years old forest for the purpose of paying back loans taken to purchase the newest German sawmill, which does not process dry timber at all. Is the bark beetle consuming the Pushcha? This problem was exaggerated for only one purpose, namely to divert attention from the main trouble
We replied simply to the discontent and protests of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha's administration in regard to our publications: the National Park being under the jurisdiction of Presidential Property Management Department is obviously a closed zone. Having written a letter with an official open request to be allowed to visit the Belovezhskaya Pushcha for the purpose of seeing everything by ourselves and asking all questions of interest, and being refused, we were sure we were right to raise the alarm. But the situation did not prove to be so simple. Half a year later there was a telephone call from the director's office telling us: «Come». This shed a new light upon our former conceptions. The constant was only the fact that the alarm needed to be raised.
On how Belovezhskaya Pushcha received the status of Reserve six times
It is 1975. The director of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha Stepan Kachanovskiy invites the famous duet Pakhmutova and Dobronravov to stay for a while at the reserve. He personally tries «scribbling» in his free time and proposes them to create music for his verses. But Pakhmutova and Dobronravov tactfully replied that they only work together. This is how the famous song «Belovezhskaya Pushcha» was created. Today it is a hymn, a lullaby, and simply a symbol; it is a tune of the protected forest.
Symbol of what? The Belovezhskaya Pushcha has been announced as protected territory six (!) times (for the first time, in the XVIth century) and it was never a real reserve. This is the main myth of the Pushcha. In the Belovezhskaya Pushcha nature was not preserved, here only administrators and hunters worked: the forest was cut in the times of the Russian tsars, then it was cut while in Polish possession, then during the German occupation, and also in Soviet times. During our tour of the Reserve, guides have indicated us a large clearing alongside a road: «Here Germans have built a railway and exactly this place was used for storing timber». The ground was covered with such a thick layer of bark and sawdust that no tree was able to grow here in half a century. Two years before, in 1939, the Belovezhskaya Pushcha was given the status of Reserve. After World War II directors of the «Reserve» changed every three — six months. It was a post that implied the possibility of getting shot. Regional Communist Committees and Soviet Executive Committees demanded wood: people living in
There is an opinion that even the bisons from Belovezhskaya Pushcha are not authentic: they cannot survive without the help of man, and besides, they have mixed blood with the Caucasian type. The last bison was killed here in 1919, and only after World War II, in 1946 five bisons have been bought from Poland at a price of
The UN inspectors in Iraq searched for mass destruction weapons. We went to the Belovezhskaya Pushcha to seek traces of the mass destruction of protected forests.
— Well, say which is the place you want to see? Show us these dens of vice, the director of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, Nickolai Bambiza, gloomily joked, taking a seat in the jeep. The engineer on forest diseases Grigoriy Kravchuk and the deputy director on science Anna Dengubenko accompanied us on the tour to the Pushcha.
— According to our information, the ecologists assure that you cut the forest's untouchable permanent monitoring plots, small sites where scientists make investigations on forest changes. They indicate compartment 741. Let's go immediately there!
… The more we looked at the forest, getting a quick glimpse through the window of the car, the more perplexed we became. We understood that the Belovezhskaya Pushcha forest has to be differed from any usual forest. But could it be so different? It seemed that war was here just recently: here and there dead trees were lying. Is this really a standard of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha forest? Does the entire Pushcha look like this?
— Wait, we have not yet reached the real wind-falls, where the hurricane struck last year; Pushcha has different faces. Here it doesn't look like cleaning, it is destruction left after the bark beetle infection. This is what happens, if man touches nothing. Look further: there is a fenced area, a special grid to keep animals away- destroyed forest has suddenly become more attractive to them. We isolate different sites for the purpose of monitoring the influence of wild ungulates. It is especially remarkable that here the Pushcha has excessive numbers of ungulates.
We came to the area, where we were to make some «reconnaissance». On the «felled» compartment #741 nothing indicated presence of any human being. Where is the sense in talking about forest clear cutting? Each tree is numbered, the area is fenced … «You can see for yourself», Nickolai Bambiza said. «Because it turned out that while my great-grandfather had been awarded the Order »for preservation and augmentation of the imperial forest « in the times of the Russian tsar, his great-grandson became a gangster of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha…»
We change the «crime scene» with another. On one side of a road there is an ordinary forest, while on the other side stumps stick out and spruce trunks without bark lay around naked.
— This tree is full of bark beetles, this one is still healthy, but it has no chance of survival either, says Nickolai Bambiza, pointing to quite normal green spruces.
— Can you see the bugs under the bark?
— Look closely and you will see that a meal-like substance is scattered around many trees at the bottom of the trunks. This is a symptom of the bark that has been bored by bark beetles. The engineer on forest diseases Grigoriy Kravchuk cuts with an axe a square piece of bark of a quite healthy green spruce. The whole bark was modeled like a tattoo: «The bark beetle was present here». Several beetle specimens were poured out in the palm.
— This tree is doomed even if it is still green. There is only one way to rescue the forest, to cut down and to take as far as possible the infected trees, before the bugs produce the next generation and populate other trees.
— Can you see, ecologists say that the tree can win over the bark beetle by itself, by drowning the beetles in pitch.
— This can happen to one tree out of a million. Moreover, the bark beetle does not attack a healthy tree, it settles only on weakened trees. Owing to the drought of last years the spruces do not produce pitch. These are the consequences of the drainage works and of the climate change (global warming). Probably, the spruce has to disappear in this area totally.
— Are pheromone traps used against the bark beetle in the Pushcha, because these have rescued reserves from Germany and Denmark?
— Yes they did, but here there is no sense to use them here, because the scales of the disasters are not comparable. 20 thousand bugs populate a tree, while each trap catches the same amount of bugs in one year. If we do not fell a tree, it will lose needles and die, and then the bark beetle will leave it. And next time there won't be the same amount of beetles; because two young generations appear in every season. This means 200 thousand specimens multiplied by two. They will occupy other trees, then they will produce new generations and as a result, in autumn we will have 2 million bark beetles. Our scientists have calculated that about 2 million bark beetles per hectare of forest were here to winter in 2001. In one year this sum increased to about 6 million specimens, and this year 32 million beetles are ready for wintering. It is a super terrible force; they will wipe off everything in their way here. A tree is not capable to win over such a horde. When beetles become powerful, they consume both young forest and old centenary trees. The bark beetle has even tested the pine, and this happens when the beetles suffer from lack of forage.
— Why were those trees at that side of the road felled? Is it because they were infected?
— No. These trees were cut in winter since they already died in the past summer. After the bark beetle occupied them it was necessary to fell them while they were still green.
— Why were they not felled?
— But you would be the first ones to attack us for such an act. For clear cutting, it is necessary to receive the sanction of a commission of the Ministry of Nature. Till now the commission said: it is forbidden to cut a tree until it reached the fifth life stage. This is useless, since the beetle would have already left the tree, but we could not prove anything. Now there is some sort of permission to fell even trees in the fourth life stage.
— For stopping the bug, will a forest corridor be felled in its way?
— No. It is necessary to fell exactly the infected trees. In Poland and Germany, besides foresters, there are employees the duty of which is to go in the forest and to look for bark beetle centers. As soon as they find them, trees are removed.
— But aren't the Poles afraid that then all this property will be gone, after everything is consumed here?
— They are afraid. But they fear our fires more. Spruce stands in the Belarusian part of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha die and begin to fall down. Lightning has to strike next and that's that — it is impossible to put out such a wild fire. The Poles groan: for God's sake, remove the dead trees, because you can burn yourselves and us both.
— But you see, your famous German sawmill does not process dead wood…
— This saw processes both fresh and dry trees. And it is not modern, but quite the contrary. I do not know what was the idea when that sawmill was bought. Think for yourself, two computers have to serve it. This is because the small software is too large to be installed on only one hard disk. It's a confirmation of how old this technology is.
On how an «Ural» timber lorry was dug out in three days after a hurricane struck the forest
Going deeper into the forest places become lighted. We are arriving at the sites where the hurricane raged. A driver of an «Ural» timber lorry was the only living being witnessing this, since it happened that he got directly into the epicenter of the tornado that passed last year, on February 27th, through the Pushcha. All the animals, having felt the approach of the element, have left this forest 20 minutes before the hurricane appeared. The driver, seeing the rapid advance of the «darkness» ahead and the trees that were flying around, jumped out of the cabin, took refuge under a car and begun to pray. The whether phenomenon lasted 1.5 minutes, but three days were needed to cut the fallen trees under which the lorry was berried. There was no place to set a foot on the ground. The driver remained alive.
Two tornados have passed side by side, then the elements united and «stepped» together for six kilometers, creating a corridor half a kilometer wide. In this twisted forest (180 hectares), trees «grow» with their roots upwards. A centenary spruce tree was twisted like an ordinary branch. By miracle here and there the tall pines remained intact. «These trees have no chance for survival either; now they are left in the open, under the influence of the wind. But we have no right to fell them», Nickolai Bambiza explains. «We have collected cones from the lost trees and planted seeds here. In 3 — 4 years we will graft branches from huge pines and revive posterity».
— But why are there so many stumps around? Does wind usually uproot trees?
— There are very many tree tops broken off. Such trees will still stand for ten years, perhaps, but they will not continue to grow. They dry up and will finally be lost.
After such a view we really needed to look at the untouched wild forest. But we have seen the main part on the way. There was a fallen tree laid just in the middle of a road leading to the strictly reserved part of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. The director's jeep moved with difficulty over the spruce. The tree had been laying there for a long time. Thrifty Mr. Bambiza even sworn quietly; he said «it is necessary to remove this ugliness at last». However, another thing is important for us: any timber lorry is able to go over such a barrier. It is an alibi.
— It is impossible to spread the strict protection regime all over the Pushcha, only this forest site is nominated as a World Heritage site, says Anna Dengubenko after we have reached the strictly protected area.
— Before granting this status to the forest, international experts evaluate it from the perspective of how far the territory is from the people's settlements and what is the forest's uniqueness and virginity. Our strictly protected territory is 3.5 times the size of the entire National Park from Poland. For supervising such wide spaces and studying the relic forest, large financial resources are necessary, and these are absent in the Park. Look here, bark beetles are present here too. But we cannot even touch dead trees, because we do not have the rights to intervene. This is a closed circle: we struggle with the bark beetle on the territory of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha that has an ordinary protection regime as much as it is necessary, whereas the beetle breeds in strictly protected areas.
On how a guest house in Viskuli was rented for an unreal price
— It happened at the beginning of the 90's. Some worthless individuals with expensive cars arrived in Viskuli, Anna Dengubenko recollects. «How much does a day of accommodation in one of the houses cost? ", they ask. Our employees blurted out »300 dollars« for the purpose of making them leave. We had a salary of
— A week later after I came in the position of director, the price was 700 dollars, Nickolai Bambiza continued. Any National park of the world earns money from tourism. But tourism should be reasonable. We allow nobody to enter the forest without a guide, because if we permitted this, then they would light fires or start poaching. It is a pity; we do not show all of nature's miracles to tourists. Once we have tried, but those tourists have begun to take bark of 500 years old oaks as souvenirs.
How Alexander II killed 28 bisons in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha
— The gilt copy of a bison monument is exhibited in the Nature Museum of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. This monument was built in honour of Alexander the Second's hunting expedition from 1860. 28 bisons were killed in that hunt. In all times the personnel of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha exclusively serviced hunting. Since this was the elite hunting ground, the employees did not engage in any other activities here. Probably, this was one of the reasons for which they missed observing the spread of the bark beetle, Nickolai Bambiza admits. Today no person can afford to hunt in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha (at the Shereshevo hunting ground). The price of shooting the king of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha is 3800 Euro and more. There is nothing unusual in trophy hunting. Bisons are overpopulating the local forests (70 heads are in excess of the optimum population size); many old males suffer from an infection that causes impotence. They can not participate in the breeding process, while they hinder young males to have contact with females. We have to shoot them. For this task a special commission is created, which gives the death sentence or the pardon.
— Recently, hunters from Russia have become numerous visitors of the Park, Nickolai Bambiza tells. They ask straight away: how many bisons are grazing in the Pushcha? I will buy all of them!
On how Belovezhskaya Pushcha almost became Ukrainian property
In 1939, after western lands of Ukraine and Byelorussia became free, a formal question about the border between the two neighbours arose. The Ukrainian Communist Party's First Secretary of those days, Nikita Khrushchev, presented a project to Stalin. The project implied that the Belovezhskaya Pushcha be included in Ukraine. By November 22nd, Khrushchev and the First Secretary of the Belarusian Communist Party, Ponomarenko, were called in Kremlin for a conversation with Stalin. Waiting in the recreational room, the party officials have seriously argued. «Hello, hetmans, what is with the border? Have you not exchanged blows yet? Have you not started a war for borders? » After these words, the leader himself took the map and drew by hand the line of the border, which was similar to the Byelorussian version, except that the line separated a piece of forest: «Let's give this forest to Ukraine».
The Virgin Mary left a trace in the Pushcha
Protected forests of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha have saved a strange heathen temple (a stone for making sacrifices to gods). There is one special ancient stone. A legend about this stone tells that the Mother of God has left… traces on it. The employees of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha assure us that they tried to leave food for animals on the stone, but animals would all go round this place. However, when the food was put alongside the stone, all of it was consumed.
There is a unique 500 years old giant oak nearby. According to legends, the sick people that were carried through the hole of this tree have healed. Four men can easily fit in this hole.
The air in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha is cleaner than in an operating-room
At one time the experts of the Park have measured how many dangerous microbes are comprised in a cubic meter of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha's air. It was proved that the concentration was 1.5 times lower than in an operating-room
And what do you think? Should man interfere with the life of Belovezhskaya Pushcha? Is it necessary to show protected places to tourists or should science be an owner here? Why is there a confrontation between ecologists and the administration of the National Park? Does Pushcha have a chance to survive?