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POLAND'S PRIMEVAL FOREST
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Can conservationists and foresters reconcile their differences and protect Europe's last primeval forest?
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| Poland's primeval forest |
On the border between Poland and Bialorus, surrounding the village of Bialowieza, sits the last remaining pristine fragment of Europe's great primeval forest.
For centuries it was protected from logging as a hunting ground for the Czars. Then, in the 20th century, it was declared a National Park. But the protected area is tiny. You could walk across it in a couple of hours. Conservationists want to expand the National Park around this pristine core, to include the commercially logged forest that surrounds it. The logged forest still holds a few glades of ancient trees - the hope is that the logged forest would regenerate and that the rare species in the pristine core would recolonise their original home.
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| Lionel Kelleway (right) is shown how to track the rare European Bison |
But these plans have put conservationists in conflict with the foresters and with local people, who fear that their forestry jobs and rights to collect firewood, fruit and fungi would go. There are allegations of misinformation campaigns, as well as stories of ministers pelted with eggs and of government U-turns on promises to expand the Park.
As well as experiencing the unique forest and tracking down its most famous inhabitant - the European bison - Lionel Kelleway looks at the real dilemma of how to balance the interests of local people, foresters and conservationists, against the backdrop of a struggling Eastern European economy. Can Poland's primeval forest survive?
 Listen again to the programme
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