VIRGIN FORESTS AND FOREST RESERVES IN ... - Natura 2000

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54 Natural Forests and Forests Protected by Law in Poland Environmental values - these are worth of protection remnants of such ecosystems that are significant in the preservation of unique genetic resources and site types like, e.g. natural small area water reservoirs, clumps of trees and shrubs, peat lands, marshes, and dunes, patches of non-managed and unused vegetation, old river basins, river basin slopes. Nature-landscape system - such systems protect extremely valuable fragments of both natural and cultural landscape, in order to preserve their aesthetic values. Besides, a distinction is made between the strict protection and partial protection in either national parks, nature reserves and in the protection of particular plant and animal species. Strict protection - if this form of protection is employed, any man’s intervention into the natural environment has to be stopped. The purpose of the strict protection is to enable the course of natural processes. In objects under strict protection man may only study and observe the nature and no intervention is allowed. Partial protection (active protection) has been aimed onto the active participation of man in the natural processes in order to: – conserve or reconstruct the object of protection, – acceleration or inhibition of natural succession, – strengthening of ecosystems. The difference between the partial protection and the routine management activities is in the goal and the intensity of activity employed. The protection activity is only aimed at the nature, with no economic gains in mind. Both strict protection and partial protection are being accomplished in the spatial form in national parks and nature reserves as well as in the form of species protection of plants and animals. MANAGING NATURE PROTECTION The problems of protection and adequate regulation of the natural environment formation, the rational utilisation of natural resources and preservation of the richness and natural heritage are in Poland of importance equal to that of the problems of economic development. This importance has found its formal expression in the fact of establishment the Ministry of Environment Protection, Natural Resources and Forestry. The management of nature protection and supervision have been subject to wide consultation with society. Within the organisational framework of the Ministry of Environment Protection, Natural Resources and Forestry there is the position of the Chief Nature Conservator, the Department of Nature Conservation and the Chief Board of National Parks. The Minister of Environment Protection, Natural Resources and Forestry has an advisory body that is the State Council of Nature Protection, including a total of 30 specialists representing different field of natural sciences. In every of the 49 provinces (voivodships) a Provincial Nature Conservator acts on behalf of the Province main administrator. A consulting and opinion-making body at the voivode’s is a provincial Commission of Nature Protection - grouping 20 people - natural sciences representatives and nature protection activists. A director of a national park makes use of opinion of the park’s scientific council. A landscape park director uses the opinion of the park’s scientific-technical board.
COST Action E4: Forest Reserves Research Network 55 NATURAL FORESTS The term ‘natural forest’ is often understood and interpreted differently. In Poland, a natural forest is most often acknowledged such forest growing on permanently forest area, with its species composition and vertical structure fitting well the site’s potential characteristics; besides, in order to be named ‘natural’ a forest cannot bear visible signs of either degradation or degeneration. This can be either a naturally established forest or forest planted by man. The area of natural forest that comply with the above-presented definition is unknown. Assuming, the above definition is met by managed forest of age over 60 years, the estimated area of natural forest would be some 2 M. ha. Another definition of natural forest is the following: ‘natural forest is forest established spontaneously, without the participation of man, where preserved are at a near-primeval degree the natural biocoenotic relationships, among others, the structure and stand species composition, and the management activities employed do not cause disadvantageous changes in the ecosystems under question (WIECKO 1996). The area of natural forest understood following the last definition is much smaller - perhaps some 200 000 - 500 000 ha and these forests can be found only in non-facilitated terrain. The participation of Poland in the works of international forestry organisations and institutions of nature protection has resulted in the actual learning of the country’s acreage of natural forest as well as the principles of their determination. The organisations mentioned have done a tremendous job in the 1990-es for the definition, assessment and learning a lot of problems in the field of the sustainable development of forestry. One of such projects was the survey of present state of environmentally important natural and semi-natural forest types in selected countries of Central and Eastern Europe: Russia, Poland, the Ukraine and Hungary. In its Polish part, the project has found its final expression in a scientific seminar followed by the publication of its Proceedings’ Conservation and sustainable use of forests in Poland (LONKIEWICZ 1996). In this paper, 16.7% of the country’s forest area have been classified as ecologically important forest types (Table 8). In the 1995 survey of biological diversity in State Forests a total of 744 000 ha were acknowledged natural and environmentally important forest (Table 9, Fig. 5). The importance of the object of natural forest is well visible, e.g. while analysing their presence in the Polish network ECONET: with national core areas and international core areas determined (LIRO 1995). Table 8: Environmentally important types of forest in Poland (LONKIEWICZ 1996b) Type of forest Area (thous. ha) Per cent of country’s total forest area Coastal forests 219.1 2.5 Riverside forests 346.9 4.0 Boreal forests 225.8 2.6 Broadleaved forests 475.8 5.4 Mountainous forests 194.9 2.2 Total 1 462.5 16.7
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