Illegal Cutting Destroys Woods - Press
Copyright 2001 Czech News Agency (CTK)
March 16, 2001
PRAGUE, March 16 - Illegal "invasions" by wood-cutting firms cause damage reaching millions of crowns in Czech woods and forests every year, the daily Mlada fronta Dnes writes today.
Some cases are being investigated by police and one charge after another is being brought, but most often the wood-cutters are only fined, the daily says.
"Czech forests are deprived of 140,000 cubic metres of wood by illegal felling annually. The firms which buy and destroy forests come from all parts of the country, but mostly from Moravia and south Bohemia," Hugo Roldan from the Agriculture Ministry press department told the daily.
The Jindrichuv Hradec, south Bohemia, district is most afflicted by illegal wood-cutting. While in 1990 the local authority registered only two cases, two years later it was 43 cases and last year 69.
Original owners do not destroy the forests. "It is the work of firms which focus on destroying woods. They turn to elderly people promising them to give them about 100,000 crowns for the possibility to cut wood in their woods, but they do not often pay it, and they themselves earn four times more from only one hectare," Jindrichuv Hradec district authority official Jiri Nemec said.
The wood-cutters go everywhere. "They follow advertisements, buy off woods and then cut them half legally and half illegally.
They, for example, receive permission to cut one hectare but they cut more," a representative of the Semily, north Bohemia, district office said.
Wood-cutters usually ignore bans on cutting. "We told one entrepreneur three times that his wood-cutting was at varience with the forests law and that he had to stop. He ignored our bans completely," Liberec, north Bohemia, district office's Jaroslav Hradek said.
The damage caused by illegal cutting can have a long-lasting impact.
"The integrity of the wood is harmed and the wood stops fulfilling its basic functions. It loses stability, is not resistant to wind calamities and is easy for parasites to invade," Liberec wood manager Jan Duda said.
($1 = 37.860 crowns)