Police oust activists, logging starts in Šumava park

Modrava, West Bohemia, July 25 (CTK) - Forest workers started cutting bark-beetle-afflicted trees in the Czech Sumava National Park's (NP) Na ztracenem locality Monday after the police ousted environmental activists from the area Monday, the police, NP officials and activists have told CTK.

In the past several days, the activists stayed in the locality to prevent logging in what they call a zone that is supposed to be left to spontaneous development.

Some activists left the area on the police's order Monday, but four had to be taken away handcuffed.

There were about 30 activists in the locality, facing some 50 police officers.

After the activists were ousted, the foresters started "massive" logging," activist Mojmir Vlasin told CTK.

The situation calmed down this evening when the police and loggers drove off. However, problems similar to Monday's can be expected in the following days.

"Another round [of the conflict] will start tomorrow in the morning," said one of the activists who have returned to the area after the police's departure.

The NP Authority wanted trees to be felled in the locality over a bark-beetle outbreak, which the activists consider illegal.

They have blocked the Na ztracenem locality since July 15.

"The district court in Klatovy, west Bohemia, has agreed with the position of the Czech NP Authority and issued an injunction under which the Friends of the Earth group is to stop any organised movement, stay or other activities in the forest within the Sumava National Park," NP spokesman Pavel Pechousek said.

NP director Jan Strasky said earlier the activists violated the law on the protection of nature and the landscape.

He said the blockade was a massive organised event, for which no exception from the law had been granted.

This is why individual activists may be fined up to 50,000 crowns.

The activists say they are ready to stay within the area in question and prevent further tree cutting.

Under Czech law, trees cannot be felled if a person is close to them.

"We will stay near any tree they will want to cut," Vlasin said this morning, adding that the police were prepared to arrive to the scene if need be.

The NP wants to have the afflicted trees either cut or barked while standing.

The areas left to spontaneous development, where logging is banned, makes up some 25 percent of the NP's 55,000 hectares of forest.

The activists insist on the view that the NP has no right to cut trees in the locality.

The NP said last week it had to start felling at Na ztracenem. Some 3,000 trees have been marked for felling.

The NP is afraid that if the trees are not cut down, the bark-beetle outbreak will spread to the surrounding forests.

The solution to the bark-beetle outbreak is one of the main environmental disputes in the Czech Republic.

Environmentalists say the forests in the NP should be left to spontaneous development as nature itself will sooner or later defeat the pest while the spruces on which it feeds and which were seeded in the area in the 19th century, will eventually be replaced with other, mostly deciduous trees that are immune to the bark-beetle.

On the other hand, locals say this may last decades and argue that they cannot watch passively while the forests are being annihilated.