00:01:38.580Someone to lean on and someone to trust
00:01:43.220Who needs your assistance and finds your disguise
00:01:47.280Hello and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young.
00:02:02.940Today we are speaking with Jurek Lubinsky.
00:02:07.320Jurek is a Polish traveler and activist, and after traveling from Australia to Poland without flights, promoting the concept of conscious travel and connecting local activists from different countries, he joined the movement in defense of the last European primeval forest.
00:02:24.960Although he's mostly working for social changes, he decided to act in defense of this natural and national heritage and common sense.
00:02:34.020and we're going to be speaking about the Bia Wolvesia Forest, which is situated in the
00:02:41.540watersheds of the Black and Baltic Sea, straddling the border of Poland and Belarus. It is home to
00:02:47.88020% of the planet's wood bison population, 250 bird, rare reptiles, and amphibians, over 12,000
00:02:56.160invertebrates, and 59 species of mammals, including wolf, lynx, and otter. This is the world's last
00:03:03.380forest of this type, the remaining piece of what once covered most of Europe, thus symbolizing the
00:03:09.660unrestrained human drive to conquer over nature. In 2017, the Polish government attempted to tame
00:03:16.340it further, to the dismay of large parts of the society. It rose to be one of the main political0.96
00:03:22.240issues of the year in this country, and beyond in the European Union. A Bozdia Puski, the camp for
00:03:29.900the Forest, a grassroots non-hierarchical and non-logo initiative, working together with
00:03:35.900ecological NGOs, having gathered support of most of the Polish society, has managed to stop this
00:03:42.280atrocity. It has been the only movement to bring controversial state policy of the new government0.83
00:03:48.220to a halt. My goodness, well, welcome to For the Wild, Yurik. Thank you so much for joining us
00:03:54.380today. Hello. Yeah, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be able to speak about
00:04:01.920this issue and share it with your listeners. Well, I want to start us off by just sharing
00:04:07.840our gratitude for the courage of you and your comrades and for your dedication to protecting
00:04:12.760this irreplaceable old growth treasury. Thank you. We're just acting for the defense of
00:04:22.200common sense as um i wrote it in the bio and uh it's it's a treasure for us this place you know
00:04:30.660we as in poland it was the first national park in this country and you know everyone here sees it
00:04:40.260as one of the symbols of our natural heritage so we have no other choice but to defend it
00:04:47.960i've had the honor of speaking with many indigenous to turtle island land and water
00:04:54.980defenders on the show as well as activists of european descent whose lineages either fled or
00:05:00.980were transplanted from europe long ago and as intact land is increasingly rare and threatened
00:05:08.160i find myself sitting with this question or with many questions similar to what does it mean to
00:05:17.100stand for land your ancestors did not come from. So I'd love to set the stage by hearing
00:05:23.300of your connection to this primeval forest, and do you consider yourself native to this land that
00:05:29.620you work to protect? Well, this is a very interesting question. We have very high density
00:05:40.200of different lands and cultures that dwell on them.
00:05:47.020Actually, the land where the forest is
00:05:51.340is inhabited by people slightly different to me.
00:05:56.260There is a minority of people of Belarusian descent,
00:06:00.080although they have been there before, the Polish people.
00:06:08.100So even on the Polish side, in many places around the forest, the local Belarusians, so the Polish Belarusians, are a significant minority.0.57
00:06:20.100And then, of course, there's a lot of Polish people, but it's the other end of the country for me.
00:06:25.820So that areas of the country are not very similar to what I've known before coming there.
00:06:33.300So it's a very interesting question because a lot of the local community is actually against us, not all of it.
00:06:44.840And there's actually more and more support for us and our actions there.
00:06:51.100Having said that, I must say that it is our national heritage.
00:06:55.680So we are not coming from that particular place.
00:07:00.900most of us are not coming from that particular place although many of us come from the area
00:07:06.980but at the same time we know that our whole country back in the history where our roots
00:07:13.800could be found was covered by such forests and we have a lot of customs traditions and
00:07:22.400cultural heritage that dates back to that times so in a way our roots roots of all polish people
00:07:32.740are in this forest not this particular plot but from the forest that looked the same and it once
00:07:40.620covered the whole country so that's more or less what i could say it's a yes and no basically
00:07:48.220probably. It's just remarkable to hear about forests that have been living out their natural
00:07:55.460processes for thousands of years, free from significant human disturbance. And because the
00:08:02.840vast majority of land, whether that's in Europe or North America, but honestly, all around the world
00:08:08.900really has been plowed and paved and pillaged. I'm wondering how this large stretch of forest
00:08:16.940escape destruction for so long and what is the history of its protection well this is an
00:08:24.660interesting story actually that places that parts were in very densely inhabited and uh this forest
00:08:35.000same as many other forests many years private property of either kings or princes or later
00:08:45.020the emperors and it was pretty much used as hunting grounds along with hunting
00:08:54.460very early as for Europe people realized that it is important to protect the animals that live there
00:09:05.320so basically people started mentioning it so in some documents from about 500 years ago
00:09:15.080I'm sorry I can't be more precise about it at the moment there has been found mentions about
00:09:22.700protecting the nature in this forest which is something that was not in the common psyche of
00:09:31.640Europeans back then. So they were using it as their hunting grounds but at the same time they0.67
00:09:37.560wanted to protect the nature in their hunting grounds and make sure that there is enough
00:09:42.920bisons and other animals for the future generations even if they only had the generations of kings in
00:09:51.900their minds and at some point that part of Poland was conquered by the Russian
00:09:59.040Empire so this forest was already famous as one of the most natural forests in
00:10:07.200Europe and the most abundant in animals and life so it became a private place
00:10:16.980of the Russian Tsars and in bad times some of them some of the Tsars or
00:10:23.040emperors they really protected the place they banned hunting and they didn't
00:10:29.820really touch it they really wanted to protect it and at other times they
00:10:33.700allowed for mass hunting and logging so there were different periods of time
00:10:39.100during the Russian rules and then after World War one people actually quickly
00:10:47.420realized that that should be the place for the first national park in the
00:10:52.620country when the idea of a national park and forest protection appeared actually
00:10:58.340what happened was the forest was pillaged very much during World War one
00:11:04.340and it was the only last place where wild European bisons dwelled. Nevertheless,
00:11:12.440they killed the last bisons. You know, during the war many people exploited the1.00
00:11:19.100forests to survive, others used the lack of strong authorities in the area to
00:11:26.100pillage it and become maybe rich or at least make some extra money, but then the
00:11:33.360Bison's where the population of bison's was recreated if I'm not mistaken only from specimens from
00:12:28.260but it's a perfect lesson to not only classify what is old growth by the ages of the trees
00:12:34.620because some tree species are generally shorter lived than others. You know, not all forests are
00:12:39.900like the temperate rainforest of the Pacific coast where I live, where trees can live to be over a
00:12:44.540thousand years old. So I guess I'm wondering what defines old growth of this forest type, or
00:12:51.060we could also say what defines it being ancient or primeval forest?
00:12:58.260That's a very good question. Well, according to the Polish forestry, an old growth forest or an old growth tree stand is a tree stand where there is a certain number of trees which are over 100 years old.
00:13:17.660Actually, in Polish, the word old growth is ignored, and instead people say over 100 years old forest or tree stand.
00:13:28.180So that's according to the Polish forestry.
00:13:31.940But in this forest, it's a complicated issue, because this forest has also suffered from centuries of pillaging, but not all of it.
00:13:44.100So it has continuously existed for about 12,000 years, which here in this temperate climate is a very long time.
00:13:55.000And I think the oldest trees can be around 200 years old, if I'm not mistaken.
00:14:02.380But what actually is very important here, and that's something that's really rare in Europe, is the presence of dead wood.
00:14:14.100And that's what makes this forest natural.
00:14:17.220All over Europe, people started managing forests already a long time ago.
00:14:23.000First of all, the European civilization growing rapidly, it needed a lot of wood, which was
00:14:31.360the main building material for a very long time.
00:14:34.760And also they need wood for the armies and ships that let them conquer the world.
00:14:41.180And actually, here, the areas of Poland and its neighboring countries were one of the main supplier of wood for a very long time.
00:14:51.640So people were basically pillaging the forests, logging, clearing them, and then, of course, making fields in their place.
00:15:02.000So what happened at some point is they understood they could finish off the wood if they don't stop.
00:15:09.760and they started managing forests meaning basically making plantations but what the
00:15:16.580plantations lack is dead wood because they don't allow the trees to grow too old because then you
00:15:23.320can't sell the wood right and you mentioned the countless species of invertebrates and
00:15:30.660and the lynx and other animals they don't live in other forests because the circle of life
00:15:39.620is not closed if the dead wood is is removed there's so many species that live off dead wood
00:15:49.440and that's what actually keeps this cycle fully natural there's no people involved in the cycle
00:15:57.660birth growth then death and then then rebirth in a way right because a lot of organisms process
00:16:08.220this deadwood providing food to other organisms be it fungi invertebrates or plants and that's what
00:16:20.120allows for new trees to grow for the forest to regenerate and another important thing about the
00:16:29.280Deadwood is a natural barrier that allows for different kinds of deers and elk
00:16:39.160not to eat all the sprouts of new young trees.
00:26:58.560your personal stories from being at the camp for the forest and I have a lot more questions
00:27:09.000technical questions about the forest and the government and whatnot but I also feel
00:27:15.680intrigued to ask you about the social and organizational dynamics of the occupation
00:27:22.460what helped keep the community stay cooperative and unified and what can you share about your
00:27:29.360tactics well in the beginning of the existence of comfort the forest which basically came to
00:27:37.740exist when people gathered to block some of the logging it started may in the end of may last year
00:27:48.460After a very long action of trying to stop the logging or prevent the logging using, you know, let's say political ways. So trying to act on the state forests to withdraw the ideas of mass logging the forest, which failed, were completely ignored.
00:28:13.460people gathered there and they sat and they talked sharing the their experiences
00:28:22.560from different actions some of them were people who are really experienced with
00:28:29.180ecological actions others had experienced from different movements
00:28:36.740be it anarchistic or some protest movements about different issues,
00:28:44.500they decided that a non-hierarchic, grassroots, no-logo camp
00:30:25.640everybody's welcome we talk every day we discuss our strategies we discuss our
00:30:31.820different ideas we evaluate and everybody can share their ideas or
00:30:37.760opinions and opinion of someone who has just arrived is also really valid and
00:30:47.200and listen to and that creates this amazing almost uh utopic uh atmosphere where everyone
00:30:57.600can come and even if they have no experience whatsoever in anything uh any similar actions or
00:31:04.880projects can find something they're good at because nobody tells anyone what to do and
00:31:12.640And it's actually, you know, coming somewhere where there's no strict discipline, where
00:31:20.360there's no orders, there's only questions, who can do this and that, we need people to
00:31:27.440do this and that, who would like to volunteer for that, you know, and then there's maybe
00:31:33.440some work groups that appear from time to time to work on some specific task, and maybe
00:31:40.600such work group can have a leader but this person next day maybe the same person is doing the dishes
00:31:48.520for everyone you know so um that's really amazing because it's um allows talents of every single
00:31:59.020person to be not only found often by this person because it often happened that someone discovered
00:32:06.700something themselves they were not aware of and these talents can be utilized in order to really
00:32:14.060do something for the protection of the forest and also we don't have situations when
00:32:20.700there is someone from some very big ecological organizations let's say or a political party or
00:32:28.400something and you know maybe they are someone important in some circles somewhere and nobody
00:32:36.140knows that because they can't wear a logo they can't be saying oh hello I'm this and this person
00:32:41.060from this and this organization I'm the head of this and this department or something so again
00:32:47.000this creates an atmosphere of a really good cooperation between people and what often happened
00:32:55.240there was that we got to know each other pretty well before finding out who we are so what happens
00:33:04.800in let's say normal everyday life is when you meet someone you exchange first your names and
00:33:13.480then probably your professions or your origins like where are you from what do you do right
00:33:20.540that's the questions we ask to each other normally but there you would spend five hours with someone
00:33:27.200crawling in the forest at 4 a.m in the rain and you'd have a lot of different experience with
00:33:34.260this person and only then maybe after a few days maybe after a few weeks you would find out what
00:33:40.700this person does in their daily life and maybe it would be i don't know just being a student or
00:33:48.780maybe it would be being a head of a major organization that's you know making an important
00:33:54.600impact in the country or maybe something in between or something completely different but
00:33:59.140i think this form of organization where you have no bosses people they create their self-discipline
00:34:10.540but there's no discipline coming from above this creates initially a bit of chaos but then this
00:34:17.860chaos is quickly transformed into something extremely efficient and very effective and
00:34:23.480long lasting and it's been uh over half a year for me that i'm involved in this movement it
00:34:30.200still keeps amazing me i can't stop praising it basically oh i love hearing about the inner social
00:34:38.680workings it's really uplifting and just inspirational but there was this one thought
00:34:45.760that kept sneaking into my mind of have you had any problems with infiltrators or people who are
00:34:53.780coming in pretending to be for the forest but are really just trying to gain information
00:35:00.080that's a very good question we've had such people but they felt really uncomfortable
00:35:09.120being surrounded by maybe 30 maybe 50 maybe 100 people who are really devoted to the cause
00:35:19.200and they would just come for one day try to ask questions about some things that we were
00:35:27.740rather trying to keep secret and leave the next day because my theory is that they just couldn't
00:35:34.240couldn't stand this being these agents there, you know, being these infiltrators.
00:35:41.260Well, maybe they were just not trained well enough.
00:35:43.420I think the devotion we had to the cause was too strong for the infiltrators
00:35:51.000to be able to fully join the community and then really find out some secret information.
00:35:58.740The militarization of the police state here in the United States seems to be growing only more extreme, especially in regards to activism. And I'm curious to hear about how the atmosphere of Poland or Europe compares. Is there a greater culture of resistance or network of support for activists who risk their freedom and safety in dedication to land preservation?
00:36:26.480I think we are lucky at this time, at this moment now, we are lucky to be living in a
00:36:37.360place where the police can't go far beyond their rights to act. Poland was a communist0.89
00:36:47.420states until almost 30 years ago and it was a state with quite brutal police with the constitution
00:36:58.700being ignored by the authorities by the laws being really disrespected by the police by the ruling
00:37:08.660class by the ruling party this meant really big resistance and people in poland still remember
00:37:16.800this resistance and they know that they can't allow the police to go beyond their jurisdiction
00:37:22.440in their actions. So luckily the police wasn't treating us very bad. They're not really militarized
00:37:32.760here. Nevertheless, we had very bad experiences with, well, a bit with the police. I'm not saying
00:37:42.620it was good but from what I hear about what how such actions look in Germany
00:37:49.520for example I don't know details about the United States just what we hear from
00:37:54.980the media but basically there is the civic society here is on the rise now
00:38:04.220with the new right-wing government we've been having since 2016 we are looking at
00:38:12.360their hands. What was really helpful for us was, you know, Facebook live streaming, recording
00:38:20.640everything, and the interest of the general society in the cause, which I hope to get back
00:38:26.500to in a second. But basically, in Poland, state forests, being such a big state corporation,
00:38:34.760they also have their own forest rangers who have the right to for example refuse people to
00:38:46.860stay in the forest when a ban on entering a forest is issued and that's what they were doing
00:38:54.520a lot of time they were just closing the forest meaning just putting signs on every road and path
00:39:01.560that enters the forest that the entry is forbidden for a specific span of time and then they have the
00:39:09.220right to remove you from this place and what happened was they were using a lot of brutal force
00:39:17.760and they were going well beyond their jurisdiction but they still had to at least you know in the
00:39:26.120social and political situation that we have now and people being really there is many movements
00:39:32.060basically uh that are trying to make sure that this state stays democratic as much as
00:39:40.180well in the law unfortunately it's becoming undemocratic and the police actions are worse
00:39:47.920and worse but there is a lot of lawyers and activists journalists registering as much as
00:39:54.840of unlawful actions as possible and publishing them so at least the state forests had to
00:40:02.420you know they couldn't just come and beat people up or use gas spray pepper spray or something like
00:40:08.920that but they were acting very brutally with verbal violence and physical violence because
00:40:18.680what our strategy was basically chaining ourselves to the machinery we were using oh that's one very
00:40:25.620important thing i forgot to mention talking about our structures we were using only non-violent
00:40:31.820direct action non-violent protests so it was very important for us also not to damage the machines
00:40:38.600because they are public or private property and we think that acting against it is violence
00:40:47.420so we tried in order to our main strategy for except some working within um the laws and
00:40:58.820informing people educating our main strategy was halting the logging by changing ourselves to the
00:41:05.860machines or staying in the way of the machines so they couldn't approach the the trees and things
00:41:12.480like that and very often they would use indirect violence for example they were always leaving the
00:41:21.540machines on with you know they have big engines sometimes they would direct the machines in a way
00:41:27.920that the fumes would go in our faces so with this noise uh as i said verbal violence and you know
00:41:36.340twisting our hands and legs and, you know, using big knives just next to our faces to
00:41:42.880cut off some ropes or something that we're using to stay in the place. It was very, very heavy.
00:41:52.740It was very difficult. And it was extremely important to us that the society would keep,
00:41:58.220stay informed with what's happening. So we're trying to live stream all the actions
00:42:05.340now we are fighting in courts with state forests so it's a big law battle at the moment they are
00:42:15.180filing hundreds of court cases against us which are usually fines they send us for
00:42:22.820staying in the forest even though we were asked to leave and things like that for trespassing
00:42:29.100basically i'm not sure if it can be called trespassing but you know disobeying the ban
00:42:34.020on entry to a particular plot of the forest but we are also suing them for being brutal towards us
00:42:44.240and exceeding their jurisdiction so you know it could have been worse if we didn't have the
00:42:53.940support of the society and it could have been worse if officials the meaning state officers
00:43:02.820of the state forests and the forest rangers and the police didn't have to stay more or less within
00:43:10.560limits of some common sense with their actions it could have been much worse if for example the
00:43:18.340forest was somewhere really far away from towns and cities and there was no phone signal so we
00:43:23.900wouldn't be able to make live transmissions from the events so we have been being persecuted
00:43:32.600by the police unlawfully but luckily you know without the threat to our life and
00:43:39.640without any major injuries or you know the worst things that happened where we were arrested some
00:43:49.900of us although that wasn't happening very often and for example kept in jail for 24 hours
00:45:09.800For every Swedish shop under the city you will find.1.00
00:45:13.800For the request of trees, trees and trees,0.97
00:45:16.800we will show you the history of the blood.
00:45:19.800Although it will not be a story about a vampire,
00:45:22.800one you've mentioned a few times the designated forest versus protected areas or logged forest
00:45:40.020versus protected areas and here in the united states protective land designations can also
00:45:46.160be confusing because we have wilderness areas and national parks and the national forest and
00:45:51.620Bureau of Land Management land. And these titles can be misleading because, for example, in some
00:45:58.560of these lands, logging can happen, mining can happen, oil extraction, hunting can happen.
00:46:04.500So I'm interested to talk about the various jurisdictions that the Biolwoviezer falls under
00:46:11.300as the forest extends in both Poland and Belarus and has been deemed a UNESCO World Heritage Site
00:46:17.820And then encompasses areas protected under the EU's Natura program, which, as you mentioned, it's one of the largest coordinated networks of protected areas in the world, actually making up 18% of the EU's landmass.
00:46:30.020So I know you've touched on this throughout the interview, but if you could just elaborate on the complexities surrounding the forest's protective designations, and then I'd love to hear how that fits into the visions for expanding the protection of other primeval forests in Poland or neighboring European nations.
00:46:49.020when it comes to this forest on the polish side there is a national park which comprises just
00:46:58.840around one-sixth of the polish area of the forest and the rest of the forest is under the management
00:47:07.840of the state forests and the management not ownership because according to the law the state
00:47:15.160forests manage public property in sustainable ways according to the law. Within the national park
00:47:22.220there is something really unique as for the whole country which is a strict reserve.
00:47:30.700That's a place, a large area where only people employed in the national park and scientists can
00:47:38.800enter so no tourists can ever enter this zone there is just one specific place where a tourist
00:47:48.700can enter the zone with guides and the guides being employees of the national park so it's
00:47:59.280really amazing that these places are really undisturbed by humans because apart from one