General Problems of Forest Environment Protection in Poland

From the very beginning of mankind, forests affected the shape of human civilization by supplying environmental values and food, wood and its derivatives harvested in the course of merciless exploitation. Changes in the environment caused by human activity included whole forest biocenoses, which acquired an ever increasing degree of anthropogenic character over considerable expanses of Europe. Destruction of the earth's surface, forest fires, extreme weather factors, disease, outbreaks of noxious insects, and a mass appearance of game animals affected forests in Poland during the last 200 years, but especially in recent decades. Soil degradation is also observed, mainly in oligotrophic habitats of coniferous forests, as a direct consequence of overly intense forest utilization. Century-long changes in the turnover of elements in forest ecosystems overlapped with deposition of air pollutants over the last 40 years. Poland belongs to the majority of European countries which receive from local sources and from abroad more atmosphere pollutants, e.g., sulphur, than they export. Complex influences of air pollutants under certain weather conditions lead to forest decline. However, trees die sometimes also under low concentrations of pollutants, without signs of insect or fungal activity, even under favorable climatic conditions. In this paper, the inventory of Polish forests, as well as the program for monitoring decline, is discussed and the regionalization of forest decline is shown. Then, counteracting methods against degradation of forest ecosystems used in Polish forestry are presented. I suggest new forest policies and propose a new model of forest management as well as restriction of technical pressures on the forest environment

Large area nature protection in State Forests

Najważniejsze polskie szkoły ekologiczne zajmują się zjawiskami zachodzącymi w przyrodzie nie skażonej wpływami człowieka. Tymczasem rzeczywistość jest inna, wymaga właśnie rozpoznania zjawisk i zależności ekologicznych kształtujących się w jego obecności. Chodzi więc o przeniesienie idei ochrony przyrody poza obszary chronione prawnie. Ma to głęboki sens społeczny i rzeczowy, gdyż ochrona konserwatorska chroni małą powierzchnię lasów lub innych ekosystemów, a powiększanie liczby i powierzchni parków, rezerwatów i innych form ochrony ma realne ograniczenia. Szereg unormowań, w tym znowelizowana w 1997 r. Ustawa o lasach postanowiła, że przedmiotem gospodarki leśnej nie jest drzewostan lecz cały ekosystem leśny. Zobowiązała wykonawców planów urządzania lasu – podstawowego dla nadleśnictwa dokumentu gospodarczego – wprowadzenie jako jego części programu ochrony przyrody. Zmieniło to całkowicie zakres zadań operacyjnych każdego nadleśnictwa w Polsce stwarzając warunki realizacji wielkoobszarowej ochrony przyrody.The main Polish ecological schools deal with ecological phenomena occurring in nature that is not contaminated by humans. Meanwhile, the reality is different and requires recognition of environmental phenomena just depending on a human being and emerging in his presence. It is therefore the aim to transfer the idea of conservation outside areas protected by law. It is reasonable in the social and physical context, since conservation preservation protects a small area of forests and other ecosystems, and increasing the number and size of parks, reserves and other forms of protection has real limitations. In number of regulatory frameworks, including the 1997 revised Law on forests it has been decided that the subject of forestry is not a treestand but the whole forest ecosystem. It has committed the executors of forest management plans - the basic document for the Forest District economy – to include it as a part of nature conservation. This completely changed the scope of operational tasks for each Forest District in Poland, creating the conditions for the implementation of large area nature protection