Bialowieza woods - dualism
Article by Alexandru Cercel (Romania),
Published in «Economistul» Newspaper (Romania), No 1582, March 25, 2004
In Our Heart. Twice
Bialowieza is one of the best known biosphere reserves in the world, being included by UNESCO in the World Natural Heritage. It is the widest spread primeval forest in Europe. Contemplating at this monument of nature, any admirer is seized with respect, like when being in front of a medieval citadel that lasted through ages and that wears the scars of sieges in its body.
With an average age of over 100 years, and with areas where trees age between 400 and 600 years, Bialowieza represents the last stronghold of lowland woods that have existed throughout Central Europe since prehistorical times. As a title bringing honor to these woods we must add that the survival of European bison as a species is tightly connected to them, and so we must remember that when we say Bison Bonasus we say Bialowieza.
On the map, the woods are split in two by a borderline - a part of Bialowieza is in Eastern Poland, and a part in South-Western Belarus, being called here by the homonymous name of Belovezhskaya Pushcha.
Not supposed by many, and little known to few is the double link of the Bialowieza woods with the Romanian heart. The Bialowieza reserve from Poland contributed to the act relating to history, biology and especially national pride -the return of the bison in Romania's fauna. In November 1958, the first two bisons -Polonka and Podarek, were brought from Bialowieza to Silvut Reserve near the small town of Hateg. In 1963 two more females - Pumila and Puslova arrived. Consequently Romania had 9 bisons in 1965.
The second link between the Romanian soul and Bialowieza, from the Belarusian side, is of a different nature. In December 1991, the representatives of SSR Belarus, SSR Ukraine and the leadership of USSR gathered at Viskuli, the governmental hunting residence. This is where the meeting that dissolved the USSR and created the Commonwealth of Independent States took place. As a result of this act, Basarabia gained its independence from the Soviet Union. So, besides the interest we have as nature lovers, we have a double fold reason to keep Bialowieza close to our heart.
Curriculum
The first written mention of these woods dates back to 983, and is found in Ipatiev's Chronicles. The name of Bialowieza, seems to appear in 1409 in the Polish and Lithuanian Chronicles. This name comes from the White Tower (Belaya Vezha) from the fortified town of Kamenets, built (1276-1288) in the woods, by Prince Vladimir Volynsky for military and strategic purposes.
In the XIII and XV centuries, the territory of today's Belarus, and therefore Bialowieza, was part of the Great Lithuanian Principality, and sovereign Jagiello reserved exclusive hunting rights for himself. In 1569 the Great Lithuanian Principality and the Kingdom of Poland united and formed a federal state. In the following period the Polish kings established strict laws for the protection of the woods, and organized grandiose hunts. Sigizmund August developed the first economic activities, building in Bialowieza four iron-smelting ovens, exploiting pitch and charcoal.
In 1795 Belarusian and partly Polish lands, consequently the whole Bialowieza, were taken over by the Russian Empire. In 1802 Czar Alexander I issued an edict banning the hunting of bison, and starting with 1809 regular inventories of the bison population were kept. In 1888 Bialowieza became direct property of the imperial family, and therefore, in the small town of Bialowieza (today in the Polish part) a beautiful palace was built and a railway connecting it with the town of Hainovka.
During the Great War, Bialowieza was occupied by German troops. In only two years and a half, 4,5 million cubic metres of wood were extracted. After battlefields went silent, there were no bisons left in the woods.
After a short period of independence, Belarus was included in 1922 in the USSR.
Poland, revived as an independent state in 1918, included in its borders the Western part of Belarus. The whole Bialowieza forest formed in 1922 a Polish reserve, which in 1932 was declared a national park. The Polish delegate Jan Shtolzt, participating at the International Congress for Nature Protection 1923, proposed the reintroduction of European bison in the woods. So, from zoos and other centers, 6 bisons were gathered and the reconstruction of the species began.
After Poland had been divided in 1939, the Western part of Belarus was included in the USSR, so, in a turn the soviet authorities owned the whole Bialowieza forest which was declared through a directive a state reserve.
During World War II German troops occupied Bialowieza again, and Marshall Hermann Goring turned it into an exclusivist hunting reserve. In the battles of 1944 the palace from the town of Bialowieza was burnt down.
In October the same year, the issue of establishing the borders between Poland and USSR came up. The outcome was a split: a part of Bialowieza including the homonymous settlement and the bison breeding centre were given to Poland. SSR Belarus remained with the larger part of Bialowieza but with no scientific and research base, and received from Poland 5 bisons to start its own population.
In 1957 the Belarusian part was transformed from a state reserve into a hunting reserve. The immediate consequences were the building of the residence in Viskuli and modernization of the Kamenyuki village, the center of this reserve.
Both parts received the status of Biosphere Reserve from UNESCO, the Polish side in 1976 and the Belarusian side in 1992 after the republic became independent.
The Two Maps
Since 1944, the Bialowieza woods with a single soul live on two maps.
The Polish part, having a strictly protected area of 5.316 ha, is best known to the Western public. The bison, numbering 350 heads, is the emblem of this National Park and brought upon it international fame. But other rare species of Europe are also present: wolf, lynx, otter, beaver, elk, black stork, eagle-owl, spotted eagle to mention only a few of them. The small town of Bialowieza is the historical and administrative centre of the Park. There is a Museum of Nature and five scientific institutions which conduct researches. There are also plenty of hotels and guest houses, while the number of tourists is estimated to over 95,000 per year.
We can say that the knowledge of tourists about the Belarusian part is in inverse proportion with the area it covers - 87.607 ha. Although it is almost 17 times larger, it is very little known to Europeans that spend their holidays in national parks. The same rare species are found here, and the bisons number around 280 heads. The administrative centre is the village of Kamenyuki, where a Nature Museum, a scientific laboratory, hotels and other facilities for tourists are found. Although the number of tourists remains low, the Park deserves much more appreciation.
In principle the double administration of Bialowieza is not deleterious, but keeping the physical borderline, the fences in the reservation, and the lack of openness to cooperation at high level, practically bring stagnation to management evolution, as well as disadvantages to wildlife. Each part follows the same scientific principles and conservation objectives, but a common administration would allow sharing of experience and improvement of management. A new vision of dualism is therefore necessary. Not a vision of two bisons facing each other but one of a two-headed eagle.
Shadow and Light
Shadow and light create a characteristic effect in the woods. In this respect to this alternation, Bialowieza has had its share of strict protection laws from kings and czars, of grandiose hunts, of restrictions in exploitation and unlimited deforestation, of Napoleonic and World wars, of peace, of drought and rains, of day and night.
And the present fits in very well on the background of this enumeration, because today Bialowieza is both protected and. endangered. The big shadow of transition years between the two famous types of economy, engulfs it.
In the Polish part, the strict protection zone, even though doubled in size in 1994, represents only 17% of the woods. In February 2000, with the support of internal and international ecological organizations, the approval for extending protection to the whole area was obtained. But now conflicts with the interests of foresters appeared, and in January 2001 the Ministry of Environment withdrew governmental support for this project. Adding to this, the directive from 1998 which banned cutting of trees older than 100 years, outside the protected zone, was cancelled.
Members of the Nature Conservation Commission of the Polish Science Academy, meeting on December 12th 2003 in Krakow, addressed an open letter to the Polish prime minister and Senate, presidents of the Polish and Belarusian Science Academy, the E.U. Parliament and the European Commission stating the misconduct of administration in both parts of Bialowieza. It is shown that under various pretexts like: abnormal growth, insects infestation, wind falls, borderline maintenance, a volume of 150.000 cubic metres of wood is annually extracted, irreversibly affecting the ecosystems. It is also suggested that a bi-national Ancient Forest Park of Europe should be created in the near future.
As an overall perspective we must say that the period of 1989 - 2002 took a toll of 1,7 million of cubic metres wood from the Polish side. And ecologists, with their unlimited pessimism, estimate that the new exploitation plans approved in June 2003 by the Minister of Environment Mr. Czeslav Sleziak, and valid till 2011, will make over 1 million victims in the woods.
The Belarusian side of the coin has a similar pattern
Mr. Heorhi Kazulka, Philosophy Doctor in Biology, former Deputy Director on Science of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park informs us about the situation. Having worked, before being fired, for 16 years in the scientific department, he closely knows the matters concerning the Park.
Problems, says Mr. Kazulka, started in 1994 when the National Park passed under the jurisdiction of the Presidential Department of Affairs. The new managerial team, lead by Mr. Ivan Titenkov started to turn the Park "profitable", and initiated intense exploitation of berries, mushrooms and medicinal plants, took measures of enlarging agricultural fields and also started cattle and horses breeding. On top of this, in 1998 a huge loan of 1,5 million USD was contracted in order to build in Kamenyuki. a saw-mill! This way Bialowieza turned "gradually into a sort of agricultural-trading-industrial complex".
In 2001 a new General Manager was appointed, in the person of Mr. Nickolai Bambiza, with the mission of saving the Park from the poor financial situation and also of taking decisions in the matter of wood-boring insects out-break. Taking advantage of the prolonged drought from Eastern Europe in 2001, Ips typographus (a species of insects developing only on spruce) attacked the weakened spruce in many areas. The technological measures in such cases are: cutting the infected spruce in May - June when the new generation of beetles starts to develop, and using pheromone traps to attract the beetles on a small number of spruces, followed by extraction of these trees. Experiences in Lithuania and Sweden also show that in a virgin forest, the number of beetles decreases naturally in 3 - 4 years.
Actions taken by Mr. Bambiza, were by no means according to the scientific discipline, but favourable to financial interests. Under the motivation of pest control and wind-falls clearing, exploitation of spruce was made throughout the year, including healthy trees. There were also giant pines and even the permanent monitoring plots that were extracted! Cuttings average to 240,000 cubic metres per year. A part of the wood (accumulating to 80,000 cubic metres in 2003) was left unremoved, decaying and losing economic value, a proof that sacrificing the forest was done in vain. The employees that protested out of principle, out of caring for the woods and for the national patrimony, were simply fired.
Vandalization of the National Park brought the immediate reaction of the Belarusian press and ecological organizations, especially because Mr. Bambiza was known for applying similar measures in Pripyat National Park, situated in Southern Belarus. Consequently it was demanded that a commission of specialists analyze the situation, and that an on-site press conference should be organized, with the support of Mr. Neil Bune head of UN Office in Minsk. Although during both events it was concluded that the exploitation of the living forest should be stopped immediately, no actions were taken and managers of the Park were not affected at all, benefiting from a high level protection.
And high level protection is what Bialowieza actually lacks. Because only about 7% of the woodland is part of the World Heritage Site, and at least 50,000 more hectares have the same original structure and value as the 5000 hectares now strictly protected. So an increase of protection to 50% of Bialowieza should be a minimum required.
Mr. Kazulka goes on, observing that the perspectives of science in Bialowieza are also getting darker. The valuable 12,000 books library was moved above a boiler-house, and was in danger of being lost in the fire that broke out in January 2004. The financing obtained from Global Ecological Fund and from the Dutch organization Natuurmonumenten was not used in the interests of forest conservation. In regard to labor conditions, there are many lay-offs and work contracts are concluded only for one year, a situation incompatible with scientific research. In addition, the lack of benefits will not bring new professionals to replace the ten researchers that are left, and that are close to retirement age.
. And the light? Speaking about the dualism of good and bad, of the succession of light and shadow, we forgot to mention the light. The tone is too pessimistic. where is the light? Mr. Kazulka points out: when chairmen of collective farms, timber processing specialist or other persons of passage will stop being appointed managers of the reserve, when the Park of interest of the administration will be turned into the Park of interest of the nation, then it will be possible to speak about prospects of science in Belovezhskaya Pushcha.
Silvae ab Oriente Europa
Although it is common to point the finger at the non-ecological practices from the communist period, Eastern Europe has entered the third millennium with a natural treasure incomparably greater than Western Europe's.
But this situation that makes the nature lovers from the East feel proud, makes the nature administrators from the East go blind. For them using this patrimony means consuming it. We have to mention here the numerous infringements of the Bern Convention for protection of rare species of plants and animals. For example the bear, existing in viable populations only in the East, although having full protection, is legally and excessively hunted in Romania and Slovakia.
Eastern Europe must raise its new generations with loving for nature not with making profit from nature. In the same time it has to protect nature so it doesn't end up with a generation of ecologists without object of study, ecologists that would know nature only from books and that would often look over their country's border at other preserved lands.
Within the Western ecological trend, of reconstruction of natural environment and of wildlife habitats, Eastern woods are undoubtedly a model. A lot of visitors admire them. As the National Art Museum enjoys the income brought in by the visitors, and not the income brought by the selling of a masterpiece, so should we do with nature. Selling a part of the patrimony brings a big sum of money in short term, but actually both are gone with the wind.