Poland Announces Plans to Resume Logging in the former Bialowieza Forest

Poland sighting the need to clear roads and protect trees from the spruce bark beetle has announced it plans to resume logging in the former Bialowieza Forest. The area that has not been logged since 2018, following a judgment by the European Court of Justice, which at that time ruled that the cutting of trees in the rainforest was illegal and that the harmful effects had not been sufficiently studied. Recently, the Polish government has introduced new harvest quotas which, according to the deputy climate minister, do not contradict the court ruling. He added that in some parts of the forest no wood is cut until mating season is over and no trees are cut in parts of the forest that are over a century old. The European Commission has already threatened financial penalties if Poland does not comply with the standing court ruling.