Europe is last hope for Polish forests
A coalition of Polish NGOs including OTOP (BirdLife in Poland) has today turned to the European Commission to help secure the long term future of some of its most precious forests from tarmac and traffic.
Valuable wildlife sites in northeast Poland are under serious threat from a series of major road projects on the likely route of the Trans-European road corridor from Helsinki to Warsaw, known as the "Via Baltica".
These projects include two new 4-lane bypasses and an upgrade of an existing road to 4-lanes, which will affect Augustow and Knyszyn Special Protection Areas (SPAs), both protected under EU law. Both sites are primeval forests and home to numerous protected bird species including Lesser Spotted Eagle Aquila pomarina, White-tailed Eagle Haliaeetus albicilla, European Honey-buzzard Pernis apivorus and White-backed Dendrocopos leucotos and Three-toed Woodpeckers Picoides tridactylus.
Before Christmas, the SPAs were given a temporary reprieve from damage when the Polish Minister of the Environment upheld appeals and revoked the consents for the road projects. Inadequate environmental assessment was one of the reasons given. However, the threats continue as the developer (the Polish Roads Agency) is already reapplying for consent to continue with construction.
Because SPAs are sites of European importance they are subject to specific planning requirements set out in the EU Birds and Habitats Directives. OTOP is now seriously concerned that the planning procedures will not comply with the requirements of European law, because the environmental assessments for the roads are completely inadequate. For example, the Roads Agency has failed to assess the full range of impacts on key bird species, or to examine possible alternatives to the suggested route which may be less damaging to the habitat.
Because of these concerns, the NGO coalition (which also includes WWF Poland and the Polish Green Network) has today submitted a complaint to the European Commission. The Commission will now investigate the situation and discuss it with the Polish Government.
OTOP and the coalition does not believe that it should be a choice between biodiversity or transport development. Rather, what is needed is development that integrates the needs of the economy, local people, and the environment in a sustainable way. To help achieve this, both individual road projects and development of the Via Baltica transport corridor as a whole should be planned in a way that properly considers implications on biodiversity as required by EU law.