After years of efforts to limit the scale of logging and increase the amount of protected areas in the Białowieża Forest, Poland, the Polish Government has begun intensive logging using the outbreak of the spruce bark beetle as an excuse. In the first four months of 2017, over 10 thousand trees have been cut in parts of the forest with the oldest trees, over 100 years old. The recently imposed legal ban on entering major parts of this UNESCO’s World Heritage Site serves to prevent citizen control of the intensified logging.
Poland
Bulletin articles
7 July 2017
Other information
17 September 2014
WRM information sheets on GE tree research
First posted: August 2014
Forest tree species being manipulated:
Hybrid aspen (populus)
Aim of genetic manipulation