Forest restitution battle may turn again
As the government's property restitution bill faces Sejm scrutiny, forestry officials worry that deputies might turn state forests into a holding company after having previously abandoned the idea.
Last autumn, resistance from environmentalists and forestry officials prompted the government to relent on returning forest lands to previous owners. As restitution, former owners of land and buildings were to receive shares of a timber company. The plan was part of a comprehensive reprivatization bill, which 10 years into democracy would finally return property seized by the communists.
But, Konrad Tomaszewski, director of the State Forests, convinced ministers that forests should not be returned to owners or be used as compensation for other seized properties. Instead, the cabinet drafted the current bill, adopting Tomaszewski's idea to compensate pre-war owners of forests from the forestry budget. Buying out owners at 50% of their claims might cost zl. 500 million. ($120 million).
Today, Tomaszewski is worried that under the pressure of the pre-owner lobbying, the tide might shift again and deputies working on the restitution bill will decide to shift state forests into a company.
Meanwhile, environmentalists argued that restitution of forests would bring uncontrolled cutting and limit public access. "In the years 1992-1997 a great part of the forests in private hands was cut," Ryszard Nowakowski, deputy director of the State Forests said. "Let's not forget that the State Forests re-forested 2 million hectares of land."
Environmentalists are not the Forestry's only ally. Two weeks ago, the Peasants Party (PSL) handed the Sejm 540,000 signatures calling for a referendum arguing that de-nationalization of forests is a matter that the nation should decide. But under pressure from the former owners, the tide may be shifting against Tomaszewski's plan.
Former owners are unlikely to yield. They promised to launch an information campaign to explain why restitution is a moral obligation. "We are all owners of apartments, houses, shops or cars," reads an appeal released by their national organization. "If private property is to be respected in Poland, theft must not be affirmed and property cannot be divided into former and current property."
Jan Aleksander Rudzki, head of the Lublin-based Polish Landowners Association and a former State Forests regional director, argued that pre-war owners could manage forests effectively. In his view, Poland owes the good condition of its forests to private owners, who re-forested vast areas after World War I.
Rudzki, who claims 800 hectares of forest seized after the war, didn't agree that return of forests would limit access for tourists. "Nobody is going to block access to forests. Besides, who could afford fencing off hundreds of hectares?" According to Rudzki, the communists seized forested land from 70,000 farmers as well as 10,000 major landowners who had lost up to several thousand hectares each. If Parliament restored forests to owners, some 30% of today's forests would return to private hands, Rudzki estimated.
