The mayor of Sokolka wants the trees on the roadside to be cut down en masse. He claims that they are dangerous, their branches can break and spread. He believes that if trees die, people don't die – those who crash into trees while driving too fast and often drunk. The tree-lined avenues are beautiful. This is a regional exhibition. The mayor argues that the forest is for the trees.
Nature, including avenues of trees along the road, is a characteristic feature of the Podlasie region. Unless you are Piotr Reczko, the star of Sokolka. This is a threat to him.
– They destroy the structure of the road through their root system. They cause a person riding a bicycle during a storm to fall on the branches of these trees – says Piotr Reczko, the star of Sokolka.
They need to be cut down, says the mayor, referring to road safety rules and the marking of which trees. – The whole region of Sokolka is marked with these marks. Basically, there is no choice of trees to be cut down. Not the type, not the age of these trees, not their condition. Terrible – concludes Beata Wilczynska, photographer.
– He was nicknamed the butcher of the tree. Cutting down about three thousand trees on the side of the road and saying that the trees are weeds and their place in the forest is not something we want to hear – explains Mikołaj Dorozala, Deputy Minister of Climate and Environment.
– This is not cutting down trees, but it is practically a massacre, – says Michal Matyskiel, the mayor of Suchovola. The starosta, the road manager, carried it out through the hands of the commune heads and mayors, who decided on it.
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– People died on city or district roads because there are trees there – says Piotr Reczko. – All this under the pseudo-pretext of security. And if you don't know what it's about, it's about something completely different, says Michal Matyskiel.
The Ministry announces changes to the law
– Maybe we have a suspicion, I don't know if it's true or not, maybe the mayor wants to make money by selling these trees to burn them in the field of energy – explains Mikolaj Dorozala.
The Ministry of Climate and Environment announces changes in the law – for example, banning the burning of high-quality wood in the production of mass energy or, according to the Scandinavian model – the release of forest managers when someone enters the forest during a storm and a branch falls on them.
– We cannot prevent everything – says Aleksandra Piotrowska from “Action to Save Krakow”. Decisions to cut, also in urban centers, dictated by excessive fear or the desire to make a quick profit for the commune, are very easily taken without taking into account the real losses. Planting today's “forest for Krakow residents”, if it is sustainable, will take many years.
Polish farmers are struggling with the consequences of this year's drought. “Growing food is more difficult” Magda Lutsyan/TVN Fact
– Trees produce oxygen for us, retain moisture in the soil, but also provide services such as shade, temperature reduction and a place to rest, – says Aleksandra Piotrowska.
Also in Podlasie. The Regional Department of Environmental Protection in Białystok announces that every tree designated for felling is inspected by the mayor.
– We do not know on what basis these trees have been assessed as a danger to the safety of traffic on the road. These are roads less traveled, says Adam Yuchnik from the Regional Department of Environmental Protection in Bialystok.
Not all trees die.
Main photo source: TVN24
