EC won’t fine Poland for Białowieża logging

The European Commission has accepted Poland's explanations regarding stopping the logging in the Białowieża forest and will not apply to the EU Court of Justice to fine Warsaw, the Polish Press Agency PAP said quoting EU sources. Back in January, Polish government submitted a document highlighting how it is implementing earlier ECJ ruling ordering it to stop logging in the primeval forest. The ECJ in November last year ruled that Poland has to “immediately cease its active forest management operations in the Bialowieża forest, except in exceptional cases where they are strictly necessary to ensure public safety.” For breaking that order, Warsaw would be fined €100,000 for every day of continued logging. According to PAP sources, officials in Brussels are satisfied with the actions of Polish authorities and will not pursue further fines. The mass logging started in 2015 when then Environmental Minister Jan Szyszko claimed that trees need to be cut in order to save the forest from a bark beetle infestation. Since logging started, timber harvesting has increased threefold in Białowieża and brings PLN millions in profits to the state-owned company managing Polish forests. The Białowieża forest, which covers about 1,500 square kilometers of north-eastern Poland and Belarus, is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a part of it forms a national park. It’s one of the few remaining parts of the primeval forest that covered most of Europe for thousands of years.