“The lack of dialogue has done more damage to our country's forests and our nature than the bark beetle,” said Poland's Minister for Climate and the Environment, Paulina Hennig-Kloska (Paulina Hennig-Kloska), in her opening address to the first session of Poland's National Forest Council; the ministry she heads (MKiŚ) initiated and organised the event.
Representatives of the State Forests (SF), non-governmental organisations, scientists, the timber industry, local authorities and other state institutions, along with private forest owners, gathered in a single room; also taking part were the head of the Chancellery of the Polish Sejm, Jacek Cichocki (Jacek Cichocki), and, in a recording shown at the event, the European Commission's Directorate-General for the Environment. The meeting — announced in January this year, shortly after a moratorium on logging was declared at ten sites, by deputy minister and chief nature conservation officer Mikołaj Dorożała (Mikołaj Dorożała) — is intended to serve the development of sustainable solutions that reconcile differing views and objectives, namely effective forest protection and the supply of raw material to the Polish economy.
P. Hennig-Kloska recalled the governing coalition's pledge to withdraw 20% of the socially and ecologically most valuable forest areas from production functions. “We want to do this while taking care of the state of Polish industry (...),” the minister added. On the very first day of the Council's sitting, differing visions were voiced and the various positions of the parties to the talks were set out.
The public wants a say in decisions about Poland's forests
According to Mikołaj Dorożała, the meeting is guided by four fundamental principles — involving civil society in the dialogue about forests, changing the formula for forest management, increasing protection of forests of high natural and social value, and securing a sufficient quantity of timber for Polish industry.
“Why are we meeting? Surveys show clearly that Poles want forests to be better protected from a natural and social point of view, and they want a say in this,” said the deputy minister, recalling the importance of forests in the fight against biodiversity loss and in mitigating climate change, as well as the country's national and international commitments.
“A participatory model of action,” M. Dorożała continued, “must be applied at every level and stage, combining a top-down and a bottom-up approach.” The aim is the sustainable protection of the 20% most valuable forest areas while ensuring stable conditions for the timber industry, together with the administrative and legal framework for all of it. The purpose of the discussion is to develop acceptable criteria for selecting forests of particular natural and social value and for organising the process of designating those areas, as well as the principles of forest management and monitoring within them.
“We must identify the risks (...) and, above all, look for systemic solutions to ensure that the changes are lasting. (...) We must agree on a method and a timetable for further work. I believe that together we will manage it,” the government representative said hopefully.
Poland's State Forests (Lasy Państwowe, LP) as a model of sustainable development
The current situation in forest management in Poland was defended in an opening speech by the adviser to the Polish President, Sławomir Mazurek (Sławomir Mazurek). The former vice-president of the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management argued that the State Forests are “an excellent model of sustainable development”, as evidenced by the growth of forest area in Poland since the end of the Second World War and by increasing biodiversity, thanks to the restoration of species populations such as the European bison, and by protected bird species that benefit from the conditions found in harvested forests. Foresters leave deadwood, biogroups and hollow-bearing trees, allowing part of the stand to decompose naturally, and they also establish various kinds of protected areas.
“Thanks to a special organisational and legal formula, the forests are able to cover the costs associated with income forgone in protected areas,” the adviser continued. He recalled the COP24 summit held in Katowice in 2018 and the forest declaration “Forests for Climate”, in which “multifunctional and sustainable forest management” was recognised as an effective means of protecting nature and mitigating climate change.
“The source of the success of Poland's forests is a management system based on well-considered planning and self-financing. This model of Polish forestry must be preserved at all costs. It is also an opportunity to create environmentally friendly jobs and funding from the sale of the goods that forests provide,” said S. Mazurek. In the speaker's view, this model is currently under threat, and any changes to it require broad consultation and “incontrovertible scientific evidence”.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you will be talking about solutions! For them to be permanent, they must be set down in law (...),” the adviser to the Polish President concluded.
Professor Maciej Nowicki: non-production functions are becoming ever more important
As the representative of the Council's presidium and former environment minister, Professor Maciej Nowicki (Maciej Nowicki), pointed out in his address “The challenges facing Polish forestry in the 21st century”, the concept of forest management based on human-planted monoculture plantations began in the 19th century, when the area of natural forest had fallen to 40%. Modern forestry was established at the same time.
“This logging-oriented model of forestry remains largely current today. Yet timber is no longer a fuel or the main building material. The sources of mass demand for timber have disappeared; interior finishing and furniture manufacture remain, but compared with the huge demand of the past this is only a niche,” said Professor Nowicki. Under the new socio-economic conditions, the non-productive functions of forests are expected to become ever more important, which is also linked to the role of forests in mitigating climate change and in regulating water management.
“The non-productive functions of the forest were named as a priority in the 1991 Forest Act, which was revolutionary for its time. The economic function was written in last of all,” the speaker recalled.
The professor mentioned the forest complexes created in 1994, which the State Forests established as areas of sustainable forest management with increasing biodiversity.
“The idea was a gradual transition from forest monocultures to forests resembling natural ones. Initially they made up 7% of the state forest area; thirty years on they amount to only 12%, even though this experience was meant to be extended over larger areas,” said the expert. M. Nowicki was critical of the State Forests' record in recent years, accusing the organisation of having become “a state within a state” that evades public scrutiny of its operations and of forest management.
“The forests belong to society; an enterprise whose priority is logging cannot claim that it knows best how to manage them. (...) The priority of protecting nature and restoring natural wealth must be reinstated,” Professor M. Nowicki concluded.
Making use of proposals already prepared
Professor Kazimierz Rykowski (Kazimierz Rykowski) referred to the experience of the National Forest Programme, a project carried out in 2013–2015 whose idea originated at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The programme, developed over 12 years, brought together the work of 728 people and produced 298 detailed recommendations.
“The programme combined three essential elements, namely nature protection, forest management and the needs of the timber industry. These had to be reconciled by aligning objectives such as management, silviculture, utilisation and protection at the operational level,” Professor Rykowski explained. The main recommendations of the National Forest Programme rested on recognising the “objective value” of forests and stressed, among other things, the need to make forest management independent of the political situation (which Professor Rykowski considered “one of the most difficult” recommendations). Supervisory and control functions should be entrusted to newly created bodies with special powers, such as a chief state forester. The programme acknowledged the significance of climate change, with the recommendations proposing a system to monitor its effects on forests and on the species within them. Under the programme, forestry was to be diverse and multifunctional, which should be reflected in vocational education and training. The recommendations that were prepared were never implemented, yet in the speaker's view they can still form the basis for durable legal solutions in the field of forests.
“We are not starting from zero. We need to reach back to the legacy that has been accumulated and finish the work,” Professor Rykowski noted, adding that “the interests of nature will always, in the future, be the interests of people”.
A desire to “start afresh” with the dialogue on forests was expressed by the deputy director-general of the State Forests, Jerzy Fijas. The speaker spoke harshly about the institution's previous leadership, which he accused of “eroding” the authority of foresters, of wasteful spending, of obstructing public access to information and of an “intellectual and programmatic void”.
“We want to rebuild relations with local communities, NGOs and the world of science, building social dialogue in a spirit of responsibility for the forests,” J. Fijas affirmed. The proposed Forest Concept, intended to strengthen the protection of environmentally valuable and socially significant forests as a way of meeting the target of withdrawing 20% of Poland's forest area from forest management, was discussed in detail by the deputy director-general of the State Forests, Professor Bogdan Jaroszewicz.
Permanent and partial exclusions
Poland's State Forests, through Professor B. Jaroszewicz (Jaroszewicz), have proposed introducing two categories of particularly valuable areas: those permanently excluded from forest management and those partially excluded, where logging will be subordinated to the protective function. Another important categorisation proposed by the State Forests is the division into forests of special natural value and forests of special social value.
“As regards areas of special natural value, we propose excluding from use altogether the wettest wetland habitats, floodplain habitats in the second moisture variant, priority habitats, nature reserves, including areas where the procedure for their establishment is under way, forests on steep slopes and in ravines, forests on steep slopes and ravines, species protection zones protected all year round, protected stands and stands located on islands, UNESCO World Heritage sites, and stands forming enclaves between areas in different ownership or floodplains,” Professor B. Jaroszewicz listed. Partial exclusion from forest management would apply, among other things, to stands in dry coniferous forest habitats, wet and boggy habitats with a lower degree of moisture, buffer zones around bogs, national parks and nature reserves, buffer forests along watercourses and water bodies, and so-called remizas (small groups of trees and shrubs).
Local cooperation groups
As B. Jaroszewicz explained, areas under especially heavy tourist and recreational pressure, as well as those important to local cultural identity, would be designated as socially valuable forests. This group would also include zones A and B of spa forests, forests around drinking water abstraction points, and areas reported by public consultants in forest districts. Prof. Jaroszewicz described the local cooperation groups set up for this purpose, whose task is to collect requests from interested parties and to help identify valuable forest areas. In its concept, Poland's State Forests propose separate procedures for designating areas of natural and of social value. In the first case, the process will begin with forest districts selecting particular areas in line with the criteria under discussion (together with submissions from external stakeholders). Via the directorate-general of the State Forests, the proposals would be passed to the regional directorates for environmental protection for substantive assessment, and then to the provincial authorities and the Ministry of the Environment, which would give final approval. The designation of areas of special social value would be based on the results of the work of the local cooperation groups, submitted to the provincial authorities for approval.
“It is a matter of the consequences relating to transport, sanitary facilities or car parks, which have to be provided for in spatial development plans,” Professor Jaroszewicz argued.
Risks for the State Forests
Disputes over areas of natural value would ultimately be settled by the ministry, and those over areas of social value by the director-general of the State Forests. Discussing the consequences of implementing the proposal, the institution's representative listed the risks identified by the Forests, including a possible fall in the supply of roundwood, the build-up of pests during the transition period once stands are no longer tended, a short-term decline in biodiversity (with the loss of species that benefited from forest management, such as light-demanding species), and possible difficulties in meeting the targets of the LULUCF regulation (owing to slower carbon sequestration).
“In our view, achieving the declared 20% of forests excluded from timber harvesting requires taking account of the pace of transformation that will have to be achieved across the whole forest and timber landscape. Ultimately this should also be reflected in forest management plans, which means completing the process in 2034,” Professor Bogdan Jaroszewicz concluded.
A change of paradigm is needed
An alternative vision to the LP concept was presented by a representative of the environmental sector, Paweł Pawlaczyk (Paweł Pawlaczyk) of the Naturalists' Club. The most important precondition for carrying out the reform, the speaker said, is that because of climate change “the paradigm of sustainable management no longer corresponds to reality”, and so it is not enough simply to reach for the National Forest Programme drawn up in the previous decade, which Professor Kazimierz Rykowski had spoken about. Forests, hitherto regarded as a renewable resource, are no longer such, because it is difficult to restore lost biodiversity effectively.
“It turns out that the multifunctionality of forests does not work universally, at any time and in any place,” said P. Pawlaczyk, having earlier mentioned the importance of forests in mitigating climate change, in water retention and in the associated social needs. The result of Polish forestry's “distortions” to date is the public's critical attitude towards the institutions of Poland's State Forests and towards the forester's profession.
“We will be forced to replace the paradigm of sustainable forest management with one of maximum protection for the forest's critical functions and ecosystem services. We will have to understand and stress that, unfortunately, the functions of the forest are not of equal value. It is possible to live without timber, but it is not possible to live without forest,” the expert concluded.
Changes “almost everywhere”
According to P. Pawlaczyk, the reform will also involve abandoning the thinking based on cyclical felling and stand regeneration, to be replaced by the principle of retaining as far as possible those stands that fulfil their functions and intervening in those that no longer do. He predicted that notions such as “felling age” and “spatial order” will most likely lose their meaning. As P. Pawlaczyk argued, apart from the 20% most valuable areas excluded from forest management and those where management is restricted (for example by delaying generational turnover or by selective felling), modifications will be introduced “almost everywhere” that do not rule out production functions and rest, among other things, on the principles of so-called closer-to-nature forestry, such as partial felling instead of clear felling, or extending the forest regeneration period. One of the significant threats to the reform, in Paweł Pawlaczyk's view, is presenting changes in the economic use of the forest as exclusion.
“Another way of derailing the process is to count as exclusions those forests that will not be designated as areas for felling in the relevant ten-year Forest Management Plan but may be earmarked for it in the next plan,” added the representative of the Naturalists' Club.
The Ministry of the Environment organises the process
Which forest areas should be included in the 20% selected? “These are forests which, if they are not harvested, will fulfil their ecosystem and social functions better than if they were harvested,” Paweł Pawlaczyk defined, rejecting the “extreme” position that forests without human intervention will always fulfil their functions better. Designating these areas is intended to help meet targets connected with, for example, the EU biodiversity strategy, the Ramsar Convention or the idea of restoring natural resources (which, in P. Pawlaczyk's view, holds regardless of whether the Nature Restoration Law that sets it out is finally adopted). The speaker was sceptical about the notion of state forests, which in his opinion applies only to areas that are no longer managed as forests.
“The easiest way to derail the process is to say that whatever is not being felled today will not be felled,” P. Pawlaczyk admitted. In the naturalist's view, the designation of these areas should not be in the hands of the State Forests, whose social credibility is currently “close to zero”. “The prevailing expectation is that the ministry will be the owner of the process, with the LP taking part but not dominating it. A technically difficult stage will be introducing the exemption criteria (...). Even so, we have to act quickly, sooner than the horizon for updating forest management plans, because there is a prevailing sense that we are losing the very values we want to protect,” the speaker said.
“For the reform to become permanent, a new Forest Act is needed, but also amendments to the regulations on the requirements for good forest management practice, on forest management and on protective forests, as well as to the instructions on management, silviculture and forest protection; poor solutions would be to leave the process to internal implementation within the State Forests or to hand decision-making to the provincial self-governments, which have no competence in the field of nature protection,” Paweł Pawlaczyk concluded.
On 22 April this year, after the Council's first day, NGOs published a joint proposal to “strengthen the protection of naturally valuable and socially significant forests by excluding at least 20% of forests from logging”. A number of organisations, such as Pracownia na rzecz Wszystkich Istot, Ogólnopolskie Towarzystwo Ochrony Ptaków, Frank Bold Foundation and Wild Carpathians Initiative, have signed a draft roadmap that also discusses criteria for assessing natural and social value and rules for designating protected areas.