Destruction (not only) of the Pienin National Park

"Nobody knows how many trees have been logged in Slovakia over the last 20 years, but I'm probably right when I say that it was over 100 million. A lot of wood is exported abroad, burned because of subsidies for energy from biomass, huge areas were extracted because of subsidized new roads. So it is not only because our society urgently needed so much wood, "says ecologist Erik Baláž. Trees have become a huge business in Slovakia, they are cut everywhere. When someone has capital and contacts, he can make use of the forest even in the national parks. As a consequence, the European Commission in its opinion of 27/04/2017 calls on Slovakia to improve its efforts to comply with EU legislation to combat trafficking with illegally logged timber. Low Tatras are decimated by extensive clearcut logging and timber is similarly logged also in other national parks, although the criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) clearly sets that national parks are the areas where the "interests of nature and landscape are superior to economic interests". Emilia Krotakova, as chairman of the Jarabina joint-stock cooperative, gave instruction to an illegal cut of trees in the Pieniny National Park, which apparently ended up as fuel for an "ecological power plant". The „Podtatranský kuriér“ dated 8. 7. 2015 states: An investigator of the Police DIstrict in Stará Ľubovňa began criminal prosecution of a 65-year-old woman from Jarabina for the crime of breaching the protection of plants and animals. As the representative of the Jarabina joint-stock cooperative in the period of October and November 2014 she gave instruction to cutting of trees without permission and approval of the competent nature conservation authority in the cadaster of the municipality, as well as in the cadastral area of Kremná, on various parcels. Altogether, 858 pieces of wood were cut out. Thus she violated the provisions of the Act on Nature and Landscape Protection, and caused a social damage of almost EUR 650,000 to the Slovak Republic, represented by the District Office of the Environment, and a damage on wood in the amount of EUR 5,930 to 281 land owners. The accused woman is prosecuted for liberty and the punished can range between three to eight years of imprisonment. In 2012 Krotáková ran to the National Council of Slovak Republic for the Slovak Democratic Left party . On her blog, entitled "Forests in Slovak" she wrote that she was shocked when traveling in NP Low Tatras, when seeing the clearcuts and hillsides with protruding bare stems. She was horrified by counting eight trucks loaded with wood along her way. She wrote in the article: "The forest is a home, a breeder and a guardian of animals and birds, the forest is richness, a beauty and a glory, and people have the duty to protect and enhance the forests, not to destroy them." Two years later she ordered the illegal cut out of 858 trees in the National Park . Nature in Pieniny is also destroyed by the stone quarry in the Jarabinský canyon, also managed by the above-mentioned cooperative, headed by Krotáková. The quarry works even though it is located on the Pieninské Bradlá, a Special Areas of Conservation as part of the NATURA 2000 network, which protects the most rare and endangered species and habitats in the European Union. Despite these disappointing facts, as well as despite the efforts of the activist František Gruber, the punishment was not committed and the Ministry of the Environment of the SR and other relevant authorities took no steps to stop the activity of the quarry. The question remains, what for are then our national parks and the NATURA 2000 sites?

Location

Slovakia, Prešov Region, Stará Ľubovňa district, Jarabina

https://www.google.sk/maps/dir//49.3479987,20.6743623/@49.3452024,20.6509718,4887m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!4m1!3e0

Environmental impact

• Land degradation (e.g. drought, soil contamination, erosion and desertification)
• Biodiversity loss – Ecosystem destruction
• Depletion of natural resources (fossil and mineral, forest, water, etc)
• Hazards related to extreme weather events – natural disaster
• Alteration of landscape aesthetics and built heritage

Ethical/ legal issues

• Life and personal security
• Health and well-being
• A clean and prosperous environment and a safe and pleasant habitat
• Opportunities to work and leisure
• Personal and social development, economic progress and innovation
• Education and information

Information sources & materials

Contributor(s)

Štefan Szabó, Silvia Szabóová, SOSNA Association, Slovakia

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