Traces

TRACES

I want to see wildness and natural beauty in the Knyszyn Forest, but the truth is that for the most part it is treated like an ordinary production forest. Traces of logging are visible almost everywhere — sometimes moderate thinning cuts, but far more often a bare-earth clear-cut of entire quarters.

There are also subtler traces of civilization’s impact on the Knyszyn Forest. For a few years now, winter windstorms have become the norm, snapping mighty trees with ease. This is an effect of climate change: on the one hand it weakens trees; on the other it brings violent weather.

And for connoisseurs there are the remnants of using the Forest as a hiding place — near Czarna Białostocka, besides an entire complex of storage depots you can find traces of a railway siding hidden in the marshes. Today it is barely visible — nature has reclaimed what was its own.