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PAS Letter on Białowieża Forest in "Science "

There is not enough scientific data to justify salvage logging in Białowieża Forest – Polish scientists, including the President of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS), write in the letter recently published in Science.


On February 9, Science magazine published letter “Białowieża Forest: Logging data lacking” authored by Prof. Marek Konarzewski from the University of Białystok, Prof. Romuald Zabielski from Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Assoc. Prof. Rafał Kowalczyk – director of the PAS Mammal Research Institute, and Prof. Jerzy Duszyński – PAS President.
“With this letter we bear testimony that scientists in Poland are competent and sensitive to the ongoing conflict over the Białowieża Forest. This is another proof of the commitment of the Polish Academy of Sciences to the well-being of the Białowieża Forest – commented Prof. Jerzy Duszyński on his Facebook profile posting a Polish translation of the letter.
Scientists in their letter refer to Erik Stokstad’s article published in Science in December 2017. He has described the conflict over the protection of the Białowieża Forest, which is currently facing an outbreak of the spruce bark beetle.
The question of how to respond to this outbreak comes down to deciding whether active measures should be taken to protect biodiversity, or whether it should be allowed to evolve solely by natural processes – sum up the authors of the letter in Science.
“We agree with Stokstad that the above question is essentially one of values and, as such, lies beyond the scope of the natural sciences”, they write.
“The use of sanitary and salvage logging as measures of biodiversity protection should certainly rest on solid scientific evidence—yet a research conference recently organized by the Polish Academy of Sciences has shown that evidence in favor of such measures is weak, at best” – scientists note in Science.
A scientific conference on "Managing bark beetle outbreak in Białowieża Primeval Forest" took place in Warsaw at the beginning of December 2017. It was organized by the Polish Academy of Sciences in cooperation with the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the Ministry of the Environment. The conference was attended by Polish and foreign scientists specializing in this subject, invited by the PAS authorities.
“This conference brought to light a general lack of controlled, replicated studies concerning the efficacy of efforts to contain bark beetle outbreaks by means of sanitary logging in lowland old-growth forests,” write the authors of the letter.
As they added, the Polish State Forests administration managing the Białowieża Forest has recently initiated such study by establishing a reference area. According to scientists, however, the reliability of this study "is questionable, because it lacks proper replication".
Researchers pointed out in the letter that the research is further complicated by the fact that the Białowieża Forest is a mosaic of protected and managed tree stands.
“The above methodological weaknesses must be urgently tackled, preferably by large-scale, replicated studies. In the Białowieża Forest, this can only be achieved through trans-border collaboration with the Belarusian side, which manages two-thirds of the tree stands. The Polish and Belarusian Academies of Sciences have already started collaboration on this issue,” note the authors of the letter.
“We surely need to learn the right lessons from the current outbreak, given that the next one will inevitably come; with the encroachment of global warming, outbreaks are occurring with increased frequency,” the scientists concluded.