Prague, Oct 27 (CTK) – Czech environmental groups have addressed a letter to Polish ambassador Grazyna Bernatowicz over the continuing lumbering of the UNESCO-listed primeval Bialowieza Forest despite a ban imposed on it by the European Court of Justice, the Friends of the Earth Movement told CTK on Friday.
The Bialowieza Forest ranks among Europe’s best preserved, is the home of endangered wildlife, including the wisent, and is indispensable for the maintenance of biodiversity, the activists wrote in the letter.
“For the above reasons, we are immensely concerned about the lumbering operations Poland has been doing in the Bialowieza Forest, because they not only jeopardise protected wildlife species but also destroy our joint European heritage,” the letter says.
It says the Polish government disrespects the ban imposed by the EU court, which is “a precedent, as no other member country has ever acted counter to the court’s order in the EU history so far.”
The lumbering was permitted by Polish Environment Minister Jan Szyszko (PiS). The court banned it in July by a preliminary injunction issued in reaction to the EC’s complaint.
The Czech letter to Bernatowicz was signed by representatives of the Friends of the Earth Movement, Greenpeace, the Czech Union for Nature Conservation, Children of the Earth, the Czech Society for Ornithology and other environmental NGOs.
Jiri Benes, from Friends of the Earth, said the lumbering in Bialowieza still continues with activists trying to prevent it by blockades.
“A blockade of the transfer of lumber from the forest has been underway,” Benes said.
Czech activists joined the protest actions in summer.
One of them, Jan Skalik, said in August than about 1,500 trees were cut in the rare forest every day.
The Czech Environment Ministry previously said it considers extensive lumbering in so valuable an area unsuitable.
