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Description
Based on our experience and previous collaboration with eco-activists from all over Poland, we have identified several issues related to destruction and harvesting of trees. The report from the Supreme Audit Office released in 2019 pointed out increasing difficulties when it comes to the tree protection in Poland. The law does not provide for the citizen participation in the forest and land management, does not provide proper tools for executing the law in place, and does not impose administrative penalties, or intervention strategies, in case of violations of the basic tree protection laws. The current law is also not in lockstep with the modern standards for protecting the green spaces based on the scientific research on climate and the environment. We will address these issues by building a resistant and systemic collaboration process between activists who work on protecting tress in Poland. Together, we will create a list of necessary legal changes and lead a nationwide campaign on the most pressing issues and necessary changes. We will also organize a series of meetings for the activists and leaders of the environmental movements to work on a shared platform regarding the priority problems and the future strategy for forcing legal change. We will include representatives of many groups on both the consultation, as well as implementation levels, including city councilmen, civic servants, or local forest managers, since they are at the forefront of environmental protection on that level. We will train our leaders to become local coordinators to operate similarly to the British network of the Tree Protectors, or the Polish Smog Alarm. With the support of lawyers and experts we will prepare a project of legislative changes and other legal changes regulating protection of the trees.
Summary of project results
Based on our experience and previous collaboration with eco-activists from all over Poland, we have identified several issues related to destruction and harvesting of trees. The report from the Supreme Audit Office released in 2019 pointed out increasing difficulties when it comes to the tree protection in Poland. The law does not provide for the citizen participation in the forest and land management, does not provide proper tools for executing the law in place, and does not impose administrative penalties, or intervention strategies, in case of violations of the basic tree protection laws. The current law is also not in lockstep with the modern standards for protecting the green spaces based on the scientific research on climate and the environment.
We responded to these problems by building a sustainable and systemic cooperation of tree protection activists in Poland. Together, we created a package of necessary legal changes leading to real tree protection and conducted a nationwide public campaign about the most important problems and needed changes in this area. We organised a series of meetings for activists and leaders of environmental movements to agree on a common position on barriers and problems in tree protection and to establish a strategy of action for implementing changes. We have involved representatives/s of different groups both at the consultation and implementation stage - for example, councillors and officials or local tree managers, as it is now up to them to properly protect green spaces. With the support of lawyers and experts, we drafted amendments to laws and other acts regulating tree protection.
Thanks to the project activities carried out, we were able to involve 120 people in the creation of a sustainable and systemic system of cooperation. These are active people, dispersed all over Poland, who act locally. In addition, they have been equipped with the tools to cooperate and exchange experiences even after the project has ended.
As an additional activity, together with activists from the Friends of Trees Network, we carried out an action called ‘Postcard to an MP’. We used the call developed in a previous project about the need for legal changes to better protect trees outside forests. This time we organised and held a national online meeting for Friends of Trees to involve them in the action of writing and sending postcards, we prepared a draft postcard with the appeal about the need for legal changes, printed it in 1000 pieces, but also put it on the website for self-printing, organised a local meeting, where together with activists from different parties we filled in postcards to MPs and MPs and addressed them to the MPs'' offices, and then sent them all out.
Other organisations, informal groups and schools organised a similar action of filling postcards together.
We also held discussions with members of the Parliamentary Group of Friends of Trees, as well as a media campaign GiveTreesRight and a social media campaign.