EU gives Poland ultimatum on logging in Białowieża

The European Commission gave Poland August 4 deadline to explain its logging activities in the UNESCO-listed primeval Białowieża forest, according to an unnamed government official quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP). According to this source, the Commission sent the motion” to the EU Court of Justice to use so-called “provisional measures” to suspend the logging. Under EU law, the Court of Justice may order interim measures ordering a Member State to refrain from activities causing serious and irreparable damage before the judgment is delivered. Earlier this month, both the European Commission and UNESCO demanded that Poland stops logging in logging in the oldest parts of the forest back, so far Poland did not comply with the request. Polish government responded to the accusations claiming it has “hard evidence” that its actions protect the forest from bark-eating beetles, and the trees are cut down only in state-managed parts, leaving the park itself unaffected. Since logging started, timber harvesting has increased threefold in Białowieża. The Bialowieża 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.