zemeunvalsts.lv commentary

I wonder if anyone has considered whether, and how, European nature conservation includes (or excludes) people. The article actually fails to address a problem that we are already seeing in its extreme form: war. By failing to notice that very many activities wrapped in green ribbons and printed on green paper fundamentally support the official policies of Russia and Belarus, European activists are inviting us to view them from a different perspective. If there is no fence, if whoever wants to comes, what guarantee is there that, after some time, it won't be an old or new tank driving along the road paved by activists? Perhaps a bundle of activists should be sent to the fields and forests of Ukraine to see what is happening there? There are mines, shells, and craters in the fields, and forests are being deliberately set on fire... A well-fed Europe, which often invents problems to keep itself occupied, has forgotten to engage its brains. The result is plain to see. Fatness and lethargy in thought are certainly not the European values we consider to be good. Unfortunately, they are becoming the majority.

At the beginning of the year, Poland began logging in one of Europe's oldest forests, the Białowieża Forest, to build a 190-kilometre-long wall along the border with Belarus to stop refugees. "It is almost six metres high. It has concrete foundations and barbed wire on top," said Augustyn Mikos from the environmental organisation Workshop for All Beings, which has frequently clashed with the Polish government's forest policy.

Due to changes made by the government, environmental activists have limited legal avenues in Polish courts.

Climate activists hope that by striving for stricter forest management and protection regulations within the European Union, member states will be forced to pay more attention to nature conservation. Some of them have already been taken to court for non-compliance with the rules. (...)
Photograph by Miķelis Taukačs used