"activists camped in a remote peat bog in the northeast of Poland last month and threatened to chain themselves to trees to stop bulldozers clearing land for a highway. ... the government is launching a 100-billion zloty ($33.8 billion) expansion of its road network...
Authorities had planned to start work on the highway in March but, under pressure from activists and the European Union, the Warsaw government decided to put the matter to a referendum. Activists decamped on March 2... hey have vowed to return immediately if the government starts to clear land. ... Throughout February... Poles hauled tents, backpacks and climbing equipment into the snow-covered valley, a 20 sq km (7.7 sq mile) swath of marshland not far from the Belarussian border. "We've come from across Poland to say there are better sites for a road," said Magda Figura, a member of the environmental group Greenpeace... Activists regard themselves as the last line of defense for the valley's more than 50 rare or endangered plants... including the fen orchid [Liparis loeselii (L.) Rich.]... Scientists say Rospuda is one of the few pristine peat mires left in Europe... Half of Poles think the project should be halted, a survey published by daily Gazeta Wyborcza last month showed; although most citizens who live near Rospuda want the highway built. Environmentalists concede Poland needs to expand its 570-km (356-mile) network of highways. Lorries and international traffic choke two-lane roads and frustrated drivers run over the center lines, creating makeshift third lanes and causing hundreds of accidents a year. Ecologists have put forward an alternative route for the motorway, which will connect Warsaw to Helsinki via the Baltics. Locals are afraid adopting a new plan will cause delays in a highway promised 10 years ago. Leszek Czokajlo, a town council member in the city of Augustow, told Reuters more than 100 people died in accidents each year on local roads overcrowded with speeding lorries. On February 25, 300 residents of Augustow, many of them senior citizens, marched to the valley to tell the protesters, most of them under 30, to go home. The Augustow citizens held wooden crosses symbolizing those killed in local car accidents. Some accused the young activists of caring more about "frogs than people." " URL : http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2618122.htm?&_lite_=1 ************ Regards, VB _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
