Poland’s new climate minister has said she will “get saws out of Polish forests” by limiting logging in 10 of the country’s most treasured woodlands.
Paulina Hennig-Kloska, who was appointed climate and environment minister last month after far-right and nationalist parties failed to form a coalition, said on Monday that the half-year moratorium in forests across the country was the first step to limiting logging.
The government promised in its coalition agreement to protect 20% of the country’s forests. The new measures affect just 1.5% of state-managed woodlands but include biodiverse forests such as the Carpathian forest in the south-east, Knyszyn forest in the north-east and those surrounding the city of Wrocław in the south-west.
The deputy climate minister, Mikołaj Dorożała, said: “These are the most valuable natural places that have a very important social aspect, including being near large urban centres.”
Poland is home to some of Europe’s last surviving ancient woodlands but its forests have been devastated by an onslaught of logging. Nature groups have stressed that the country is home to threatened animals that have been killed off in many parts of Europe, such as brown bears, grey wolves and bison.
Poland’s forests have seen “enormous devastation” and the state-owned companies that care for them require thorough reform, said Aleksandra Wiktor, a nature campaigner from Greenpeace Poland.
“Such a situation should never happen again,” she said. “They should serve society and protect nature, not be a money-making machine for politicians and forest barons.”
Poland’s new government has promised stronger climate action than the last, with pledges to build more clean energy, hasten the switch from coal to renewables and cut planet-heating pollution faster.
It has also promised stronger protections for nature. In one of her first acts as climate minster, Hennig-Kloska travelled to Białowieża national park, a Unesco heritage site on the border of Poland and Belarus, and announced plans to create a constitution for the forest along with stronger partnerships with local communities, environmental groups, foresters and scientists.
Poland has repeatedly clashed with European courts over its logging of forests despite pressure from the public to protect woodlands.
Hennig-Kloska said: “We are ending an era in which strategic decisions regarding the natural environment in Poland are made from behind a desk in Warsaw. We came to the Białowieża national park to show a new style of work and decision-making.”