What prevents the National Park ''Belovezhskaya Pushcha'' from getting back the European Diploma?
By Yekaterina Siniuk, Website "TUT.BY", February 25, 2012
Experts of the Council of Europe who visited the National Park of Belovezhskaya Pushcha in September 2011 still voice some criticism. Despite positive developments for which they’ve recently given credit to the new management of the National Park they will either refuse to give the Diploma to the Park or give it for a three-year period provided the fulfillment of certain conditions. On February 9 Alexander Bury, Director of the National Park, visited Strasbourg where he attempted to defend his position as the National Park would obviously be unable to meet some conditions so established. And it will be a very sad thing for the National Park not to get the Diploma after all the effort.
As noted by the European Expert Francoise Bauer during September visit to the National Park, the European Diploma is given to natural sites which have a unique value. The Park first received the Diploma in 1997 - for advances in wildlife preservation. However, 10 years after the Diploma was suspended because of numerous criticisms voiced against environmental and natural conservation activities carried out by the National Park.
Today, there are 71 natural sites in 26 countries awarded with the European Diploma. Belarus had two such sites - Belovezhskaya Pushcha and Berezensky Biosphere Reserve. As repeatedly noted by the EC expert, the Diploma should encourage the management to improve nature management and conservation.
The main condition for Belovezhskaya Pushcha to get back the Diploma was to develop a Management Plan for the National Park. The National Park's staff contributed a lot to this effort. Finally, such plan was delivered in 2009. However, the Expert Commission rejected the Management Plan because... no adequate English translation was available.
So, the Management Plan became the pre-requisite for getting the European Diploma by the Park. However, according to recent reports, now the problem is not about the plan – it’s rather about 2011-2012 State Program for Reconstructing/Overhauling Land Reclamation Systems and Maintaining Hydrologic Regime in the National Park "Belovezhskaya Pushcha" and its Buffer Zone adopted by the Cabinet of Ministers upon the initiative of the Minister of Agriculture.
In particular, this Program provides for land reclamation in Pushcha. The European experts raise concerns about it as the Management Plan requires conservation of unique ecosystems while land reclamation activities may change the situation for the worse. According to Heorhi Kazulka, former Deputy Director for Science in the National Park "Belovezhskaya Pushcha", the most acute problem for Pushcha is forest mortality caused by the lack of water. 100-150 years ago Pushcha used to be a swamp forest, but 1950-70s saw large-scale land reclamation activities within the whole Polesie area that provoked dramatic decrease in the ground water level by about 1 meter.
This resulted in large-scale spruce forest mortality that started 10 years ago. Now oak forests began to die. "It’s just that oaks die slower..." - said Mr. Kazulka. Or another example – because of land reclamation alder trees began to propagate by sprouts instead of seeds.
According to Nikolai Cherkas, former researcher of the National Park, Belovezhskaya Pushcha has not a single area that would not have been damaged by land reclamation.
By the way, after USSR collapse land reclamation systems degraded due to cut-down financing. As a result, water levels began to grow in Pushcha and environmental experts noticed the nature rehabilitation. "But then (in June 2010 – TUT.BY) we learned about the development of the State Program aimed at reconstructing land reclamation systems" - said Kazulka.
It's curious, however, that land reclamation was not even mentioned when European Experts visited the Pushcha in September.
Besides, experts even hinted that the Park stood a good chance to get the European Diploma back. So, what's the problem?
As it turned out, about 3 months ago - on November 17, 2011 (1.5 months after the European Experts visited Belarus) - the Cabinet of Ministers amended the State Program. The Program's contents remain practically unchanged, but financing amounts were cut down from 41.8 bln. rubles (~$5.1 mln) from the Republican Budget to 38.7 bln (~$4.6 mln). This probably attracted closer attention of the European Experts as they realized that the Program would be implemented anyway. So much so that in 2010 when the discussions of the draft Program took place, Vladimir Evpak, Deputy Director for Land Reclamation Department in the Ministry of Agriculture, made a clear statement that "reconstruction (of land reclamation systems – TUT.BY) would definitely take place".
Now, as recommended by the European experts and discussed between the National Park’s management and European experts on February 9 in Strasbourg, the Management Plan has to be amended. In particular, land reclamation systems "should not be reconstructed if such systems affect the National Park". The recommendations envisage that "hydrologic rehabilitation of swamp eco systems surrounding the forests and improving of water and soil quality in river flood plains needs special attention". Meanwhile, no detail studies were conducted on how land reclamation would affect the Pushcha’s natural systems as emphasized by Belarusian public activists.
The European experts also disapprove the European bison hunting and the Farther Frost Estate located in the Pushcha’s centre.
This is not a complete list of Expert’s points of criticism. They also recommended terminating wood processing in the National Park. They require that "felled trees (precise volumes) must be annually reported in order to control wood processing".
Experts also recommend "conducting environmental impact assessment in terms of mass tourism and revising borders, location and zoning of the Farther Frost Estate". Though, the Research and Development Centre for Bioresources absolutely denies the fact that the Santa Clause Estate does any damage to the National Park.
One more recommendation is to reduce supplementary feeding for hoofed animals (ungulates) in order to "decrease an unnaturally high population density". The Research and Development Centre for Bioresources has recently noted that Pushcha is still facing the problem of ungulates' overpopulations that "substantially damage valuable forests". By the way, officials repeatedly refer to this reason as a ground for legalizing the European bison hunting.
But the European experts insist that "this method (move the feeding locations to the Park's peripherals) should prevail over the method of reducing high populations of ungulates by hunting". Speaking about European bison, the experts also recommend that more accurate statistics should be maintained for killed animals including border lands outside the National Park.
Meanwhile, statistics for killed bison is actually kept. A certificate of disposal is executed for each bison subject to hunting. The Ministry of Nature Protection maintains centralized registration of such certificates of disposal. However, such certificates lack publicity. People know only that 40-45 bison get killed every year but know nothing about the attending circumstances.
The European experts also call the National Park for rehabilitating the transboundary migration and establishing a migration corridor with Poland. As you know, the whole Pushcha's territory is divided into two areas - the Belarusian area (152,969 ha) and the Polish area (10,502 ha).
The Pushcha’s management is thankful for recommendations expressed by the European Experts. However, the Park "is unable to fulfill all such recommendations".
As noted by Alexander Bury, Director of the National Park "Belovezhskaya Pushcha", in his letter of reply to the European Experts, all the recommendations can not be fulfilled and included into the National Park's Management Park. According to Alexander Bury, in addition to the Management Plan the National Park is regulated by the Law "On Natural Areas of Preferential Protection" and Regulation on Belovezhskaya Pushcha (approved by Presidential Decree No. 59 and will take effect in 3 months). The Management Plant may not conflict with all these documents signed by the President. That’s why the Management Plan may not provide for any changes in the reconstruction of land reclamation systems as such reconstruction has been established under the State Program approved by the Cabinet of Ministers.
"This would be juristically incorrect to add provisions prohibiting land reclamation systems to the Management Plan" – says Mr. Bury.
What concerns increase in financing, it depends on "the absence or presence of available funds." However, as the National Park's Director notes in his letter, the Management Plan can be revised based on the recommendations expressed by the European Experts. Such revision is planned to take place in 2013; however, it requires approval by the President Executive Office and the Ministry of Nature Protection.
Actually, it is the Council of the European Council that will make the final decision whether to give the Diploma back to Belovezhskaya Pushcha. On February 9 the expert group and the National Park’s management just exchanged mutual "claims and comments". However, the final decision is generally based on the recommendations expressed by the expert group. The expert group may have changed their opinion after the meeting, but their decision remains so far unknown.
Translated by: Kseniya Pliachko, xeniya.b1985 @ gmail.com
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