All Alone Among the Stars

'All alone among the stars' is an exchange project between two young oak trees of similar size and age, one from 13HA and one from Bialowieza National Park at the border with Belarus. Besides questioning the authenticity of the two forests it tried to illuminate the complex and impossible relationship between them. In contrast to the Netherlands where all nature is constructed, Bialowieza Primeval Park is a natural primeval forest, the largest in Europe.

Claimed to be without human intervention the forest is one of the remaining examples of original Lowland Forest which ones used to cover a big part of Europe. This forest is strictly protected since 1921 and attracts many scientific researchers and tourist. Multiple Sages and fascinating stories are constructed around it, inspiring many people.

The Bialowieza forest is one of the most intensively explored areas on Earth. History of natural research in the forest began at the end of the 18th Century. I noticed there are so many Dutch tourists visiting this forest, that explanatory signs are translated in Polish, English and Dutch.

The National Park is protected by fences and an impressive and symbolic entrance gate, which became a symbol of transition from the world of civilization to the untouched Natural world. Following the fence around the forest it becomes clear that it is not constructed all the way around the primeval forest and that the suspense created with the big official entrance gate disappears when you encounter the open crossovers to other logging forests.

Logging began with the Germans in World War I. After World War II, the forest was divided between Poland (40%) and the Soviet Union (now Belarus 60%).  In the Polish portion, a 4700-ha Bialowieza National Park has been strictly protected; commercial logging has taken place over the remainder.  The doubling of the area covered by the National Park in 1996 and the establishment of new nature reserves in 2003 made little difference.  As of 2001 stands 100 years of age or older covered only 20% of the managed forest.

In the Soviet era, extensive drainage works were constructed, but commercial logging did not take place.  When Belarus came into existence, it set aside a 15,700-ha national park and encouraged logging elsewhere in the forest. Now a sawmill complex has been built within the park, and commercial logging is proceeding even there.

On the Polish side conservationists want to expand the National Park around this pristine core, but these plans have put conservationists in conflict with the foresters and with local people, who fear that their forestry jobs and rights to collect firewood, fruit and fungi will be forbidden in the future.


Sign mentioning the exchange of trees and the presence of primeval oak on the field of 13HA