Ancient dark forests, extensive meadows, bogs and a lot of rest: the border region between Poland and Belarus is a natural paradise. The hinterland of the Bug river, the Biebrz Valley and the forests on both sides of the border are among the most important remaining natural paradise in Europe.
Adam Wajrak lives in this idyll. Its neighbors are wolves, bison and lesser spotted eagles. But where the rustling of the forest of leaves of ancient oaks, alders and birches sets the tone, trucks have been thundering over forest paths and noisy construction machines for weeks: In the middle of the wilderness, a wall is being built.
At the decision of the national conservative government in Warsaw, construction workers have been moving a new iron curtain between the European Union (EU) and its eastern neighbor at a hurry along the border with Belarus. The Ukraine War strengthened the government in its decision. At the beginning of June, border protection announced the completion of the wall at 125 kilometers. The work on the rest of the wall was well advanced, it said. By the end of June 2022, the five and a half meter -high border wall made of steel through the middle of the forest is to be built over a length of around 200 kilometers.
Local residents like Wajrak and conservationists fear for one of the last great wilderness areas in Europe. The new border wall not only blocks people's way to the west. It cuts up valuable habitats and thus threatens the ecological balance in the important natural region: "Lynx, moose, bison – they all cross the border permanently," says Wajrak from his own experience. He is particularly concerned about the lynx: "I'm afraid the wall will cause the local population to die out."
Every third wisent on Earth lives near the new wall
Wajrak is not alone with this opinion. In a letter, leading scientists from Poland turned to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. "With the construction of the wall, a barrier with devastating consequences is created, which leads to a permanent interruption of the connection of the ecological corridors at national and European level," warn leading experts from the country from all disciplines of science. The constant presence of people to surveillance and maintenance of the system would massively devalue one of the very last real wilderness areas of the continent.
More than 1600 scientists from other countries support the protest. They see the construction of the Wall as another violation of European law by Poland. Because the route runs through one of the best protected ecoregions on paper in Europe, even the earth.
The wall and a wire barrier along the Bug River cut through nature reserves, national parks and no less than six of the Natura 2000 areas that are particularly strictly protected under EU law. Anyone who wants to intervene there must pass an environmental impact assessment according to EU law.
An affected area is the Bialowieza-Urwald. He protrudes under the region's natural treasures. Because the forest of Bialowieza is the last remaining large-scale lowland primary forest of the continent. Forest for several thousand years has been in the forest, which is left to itself on a large area. While other primeval forests were destroyed by the development of civilization in Europe, people there still rarely intervenes. Tae giants up to 600 years old protrude into the air. If you fall over, you remain lying down and, as a valuable dead wood, create a new life. More than 16,000 types of mushrooms and invertebrates have proven researchers. Many of them were even discovered here.
250 bird and 60 mammal species live in and around the jungle on both sides of the border, including the largest existing population of the European bison with 900 animals – that's one in three free-living bison on earth. The peaceful herbivorous giants are the heraldic animals of the region. From here, after their expulsion, they began to reclaim their former habitat and have now reached the german-Polish border area in West Pomerania.
The new wall blocks "the main propagation route for large mammals on a continental scale," the scientists warn in their letter. Because of the structure, the animals could no longer spread, stocks would be prevented from mixing. Due to the genetic impoverishment, large parts of the Polish lynx population could collapse, it continues. A natural repopulation of Germany with bison and moose also depends on the stocks in Poland.
Human rights activists and bird protection officers protest side by side
There is persistent, but probably futile protest against the construction of the wall in many parts of Poland. Often the protests are also about a more humane policy towards refugees. The construction of the border wall is the response of the national-conservative Polish government to the mass influx of thousands of migrants from the Middle East and Africa to the border last year, supported by the Belarusian authorities.
Local resident Wajrak, who as a reporter of the daily newspaper "Gazeta Wyborcza" is known throughout the country for his environmental reports, is concerned with nature and human rights. "People will always find a way over a wall – especially the Germans know that," he says. "The Polish government must adhere to law and order, towards nature and poor people.«
The EU Commission and the UNESCO are also concerned. UNESCO manager Guy Debonnet points out that the "ecological networking" between the Polish and the Belarusian part of the jungle was a key element when the forest was classified as a world natural heritage in 1992.
Poland's wall should be legal because of a clause
The European Commission joined the concerns and demanded that the environmental impact. However, the authority Poland left a way out. If the wall construction takes place "for mandatory reasons of the predominant public interest", the government would only have to prove that there are no suitable alternatives and "adequate compensation measures," said a commission spokesman for the Reuters news agency. The Polish government also relies on this clause.
Currently, only a few people are trying to reach Poland via Belarus, reports Jaroslaw Krogulec. He is responsible for nature conservation at the Polish Association for the Protection of Birds. Like many Poles, he is shocked by the images of migrant families standing in tents in the border area between the two states in winter. "We are not against the protection of the border, but it must be humanitarian, that should distinguish our government from a regime like that of the Belarusian ruler Lukashenko."
None of the opponents of the wall questions the need for border protection. "A certain presence is necessary, and maybe there even has to be barbed wire in some places," says Krogulec, for example. But modern border security in other countries shows that there are more intelligent possibilities with the help of electronic systems, drones and other technical solutions, he argues.
"We want to defend our national security, but also our national natural heritage," says Krogulec, who himself lives near the Bug border river. He appeals to his own government: "Do not damage this legacy and thus our country in the name of national security."
© Riffreporter The text is originally on "riffreporter.de " was published under the title "Poland brings down the Iron Curtain to Belarus – and endangers Europe's last wilderness" and was adapted and supplemented for.
