Poland to create “community forests” around large cities to protect nature and serve residents

Poland’s climate ministry has outlined plans to establish 14 “community forests” that will help create “green rings” around large cities. The forests will give residents a place for recreation and contact with nature while also helping to fulfil the government’s pledge to reduce logging.

The creation of community forests is envisaged around Warsaw, Kraków, Gdańsk, Sopot, Gdynia, Wrocław, Łodź, Poznań, Katowice, Bydgoszcz, Toruń, Szczecin, Kielce and Bielsko-Biała. The ministry says they will be easily accessible for 13 million out of Poland’s over 36 million residents.

Announcing the plans, deputy climate minister Mikołaj Dorożała noted that, according to Polish law, forests are supposed to perform “economic, environmental and social” functions.

“The economic function is very much developed,” he said. “The environmental one is largely fulfilled by national parks. As far as the social function is concerned – we have a great deal of room for improvement.”

Community forests “are intended to play an important role from the point of view of recreation, contact with nature, but also to develop the idea of green rings around large cities”, added Dorożała. He suggested they would be good locations for people to go mushroom- or berry-picking and cycling.

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The community forests will be created in areas where local residents and activists have been particularly vocal about protecting forests and where logging has aroused the greatest emotions and public protests. More than 160 organisations were involved in the selection of these sites.

The ministry plans to complete work on this new form of forest protection by 31 October 2024. It has emphasised that the plans are part of the government’s target to exclude 20% of the “most valuable forest areas” from logging.

In January, less than a month after taking power, the new government announced it would halt planned logging in some forests. It also announced plans to create Poland’s first new national parks in over two decades, as well as to expand existing ones.

The former Law and Justice (PiS) government often faced criticism from environmentalists for overseeing an increase in logging, especially in Białowieża Forest. Last year, the European Court of Justice ruled that Poland’s forestry law does not comply with the country’s obligations under an EU directive to protect natural habitats.

Main image credit: Ministerstwo Klimatu i Środowiska (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.