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Mega-expressway may threaten endangered birds.
Conflicts between environmental goals and construction work may be a dime a dozen. But it isn't very often that the European Commission threatens a government with a court injunction to make road workers step down in favour of preserving nature.
Read the story here.
Posted by Nicola Jones on March 09, 2007
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I have visited this beautiful area on holiday. I am appalled that the Polish government should take no pride in it and be insensitive to its value. To find an alternative route for the motorway in that region is no problem at all.
Posted by: Prof. Richard F. Gombrich | March 12, 2007 10:47 AM
I regret to notice your article fails to mention the key issue that the proposed pro-ecology bypass alternative,
closer to Raczki village, is actually CHEAPER than the officially promoted one, as it is of comparable length but involves short 50yard/meter bridge over solid land and not 500y/m bridge over the protected marshes, as in the government option.
I informet The Editor of this particular point 2 weeks earlier.
Posted by: alex schwarzenberg-czerny | March 12, 2007 04:59 PM
This project was approved in 1996/7 by the EU authorities, since Poland was then beginning the accession process. Now the EU says that the project is bad. Which is it then?
Conservation is important, but commerce is as well. Why were Germany and France alllowed to build roads without environmental concerns, but Poland is not?
The project referred to by the above comment is not cheaper, because it makes no allowance for reimbursement for land to undergo development.
Posted by: marcin ciuk | March 12, 2007 10:40 PM
I'm from Poland and would like to say, that there're many things in my country that going wrong, this problem with Rospuda valley is one of them. And there're many, many people in Poland not agree with goverment's decision but they can't do anything against it. There're too much stupidity in people in Polish goverment especially, too big is power of money..
Posted by: Anna | March 13, 2007 10:55 AM
I find the article by Sophie Stigler unfair. She does not mention that the local people have been FOR the constructing the highway by-passing the town Augustow. There are 5000 lorries (TIRs) passing through the town every day , causing many
tragic accidences and making the every-day life of the local people impossible to bear.
Not a word about it!?!
Maria
Posted by: Maria Giller | March 13, 2007 02:21 PM
Thank you "Nature" for your publication. Let other nations know the story; nature (to be admired) is one of a few assets my country (Poland) has to offer Europe.Thank you for saying "the nation was moved to protest" rather than "the environmentalists ...". The Polish government ignores public protests attributing them to scientists only. Rospuda is in the north-EASTERN Poland, not western as given in the article.
Posted by: Ewa Stańska | March 13, 2007 10:16 PM
It is worthwhile to consider alternatives for the planned highway by-pass to save Rospuda valley. However, road-building will take too much time for inhabitants of Augustow. Several bridges for pedestrians should be made as quick as possible.
Posted by: Bram Mabelis (ecologist) | March 13, 2007 10:19 PM
"I wish to thank dr Marcin Kozak for pointing out to me the problem of Rospuda Valley, which also he pointed out to Nature."
Posted by: J.Jupowicz | March 15, 2007 09:18 AM
The recent article on the conflict about building a highway in NE Poland (Nature online: 9 March 2007, S. Stigler "European Commision fights for rare Polish wetland”) inspired us to comment on the essence of the problem that, in our opinion, is not really seen by any of the conflicting stakeholders. In the meantime, the European Commission brought the Rospuda case to the European Court of Justice, and we also feel that it may be puzzling for the majority of EU citizens why the conflict had not been solved before it happened.
The reason for building the highway was to relieve the town of Augustów from heavy traffic. However, the bypass was to run across a unique valley of the Rospuda river, of European significance and protected by the EU laws. This triggered a serious conflict between the government, strongly supported by the local community, and environmental NGOs and scientists, trying to save this area from irreparable destruction. The discussion was based mainly on emotions rather than facts.
The Rospuda case unveiled the deep deficiency of the Polish nature conservation. The main problem here is lack of the broader concept of landscape-scale conservation. Although the country holds an exceptionally rich and diverse landscape, its values have not yet been assessed and consequently, there are no law regulations to protect it. The key roles in spatial management in Poland is played by landscape planners and urbanists, which is the main reason for ecological disaster here. They are completely unprepared for landscape preservation. In areas other than established nature reserves or national parks, landscape planners’ perception of natural values is skewed towards assessment for local needs in infrastructure, such as house estates, trade centers, roads, or, at best, recreational areas – playing fields, golf courses, walking alleys, or urban parks. This means that when the decision is made to use an area for one of these goals, the local natural values will be tailored to suit the specific needs. The natural vegetation, particularly bushes and herbs, will largely be removed. The remaining trees will be pruned and the grass will be regularly mowed. The area will often be leveled, and the local hydrological regime – “normalized”, that is, wet areas will be drained and streams will be regulated and converted into channels. The obvious result is depriving the area of any natural values.
There are two underlying reasons for this situation. Firstly, landscape planners, are completely unaware of the complicated structure of the environment, and do not see the problem at all. Secondly, complete inventories Polands’ nature, covering the whole country, are lacking and consequently, there is no thorough assessment of natural values of each area. Such assessments could provide decision-makers with reliable data for making correct judgments as to the future of areas of interest. As a result, it is easy to predict that many areas of very high natural value have not been described yet and are prone to complete destruction by unaware decision-makers. Such areas include many potential Natura 2000 sites, not yet “discovered”.
Currently landscape planners, with no expert knowledge in nature conservation decide about the way the land will be used for future centuries. They also oppose to including professional ecologists into teams preparing development plans. But they cannot be blamed, since they work within the law, and neither the administration responsible for the environment protection nor the scientific community see that, in most cases, the future of the Polish environment directly depends on landscape planners. In addition, the widespread corruption among administration deciding on future land uses increases the problem.
However, arguably the most serious obstacle in making any progress in this issue is very low level of ecological awareness among the Polish society in general, and political establishment in particular. Sadly, for the majority of citizens, areas of high natural value mean some small remote sanctuaries, that you can go and visit once in a while like a zoo, and that do not disturb your everyday life. At the same time, any other uninhabited terrain is first of all regarded as a reservoir of land that in future can be transformed into agricultural or recreational area, housing estate, or a road. Therefore it is fairly obvious that any conflict of interests between the economy and nature conservation occurs, the latter are likely to loose. It seems that while the past decades of "communism", resulting in slow development of Poland, left its natural values in relatively good conditions, they also “froze” Polish mentality and several recent years of free access to information have not managed to change the old way of thinking.
Polish media do not do much to improve it. By and large, they present those few that think otherwise as a group of silly flower-lovers tying themselves to tree trunks, or eco-terrorists that block any construction, hoping for a bribe. In fact, the majority of environmental NGOs in Poland contributed immensely to the change in attitudes of the Polish society towards nature and helped local communities in nature conservation. However, this image of NGOs hardly makes its way through in the media. The role of NGOs among the political elites throughout the recent years has not been adequately appreciated either. They try to marginalize the role of NGOs in processes of forming decisions on any level of our community. Legal system and financial mechanisms make it difficult for NGOs to develop and play an important role in deciding about the future of the country.
It is impossible to find any instant remedy for the situation in Poland. It is evident, however, that the country urgently needs a comprehensive, long-term program of environmental protection, assessing its natural values from the European perspective. At the same time, educational campaigns on landscape protection for politicians, administration and landscape planners, should immediately be started. Leaving these issues unsolved will undoubtedly produce many conflicts, like the one in the Rospuda valley, throughout the country.
Kazimierz Walasz
Institute of Environmental Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Gronostajowa 7, 30-387 Krakow, Poland
Wojciech Solarz
Institute of Nature Conservation, Polish Academy of Sciences, Mickiewicza 33, 31-120 Krakow, Poland
Posted by: Kazimierz Walasz, Wojciech Solarz | April 4, 2007 09:15 AM