Nature is full of disputes. After all, they have the perfect quality â naturalness. This causes them to arise naturally and they get resolved the same way. At first, man functioned in harmony with this, but as civilisation developed and gained strength, he began to exploit nature beyond the limits of natural needs. He began to transform it, correct it and brand it. He also started disputes which nature had not known before. The artificial dispute over nature does not concern the essence of the natural problem, or even nature itself, only human ideas regarding its exploitation. Fortunately, some human concepts are downright brilliant. Law is a brilliant concept of order in an artificial, disordered world. Law also helps to resolve human disputes, including those concerning nature.
In 2013, on the eastern border of the European Union, near the Polish-Belarusian border, a dispute arose, the source of which was apparently a small insect â the spruce bark beetle. The species reached the phase of gradation, multiplying remarkably, as dynamically as the dispute over how to respond to it inadequately evolved, reaching a national and soon international (European and global) dimension. Applying a contemporary measure to it, the Google search engine links almost all search results for the combined terms âBiaÅowieża Forestâ and âdisputeâ to the dispute about this model of protection against the bark beetle. Thus, it seems that the use of the term âcontested BiaÅowieża Forestâ in the bookâs title is not an exaggeration.
Although located in Poland, the situation is not only an internationalised local case. The uniqueness of BiaÅowieża Forest, the relativity of contemporary politics, the unconstructive approach (radicalism) of the parties to the dispute and the dispersion of responsibility encourage reflection and turning to the idea of ars boni et aequi in search of solutions that would apply not only to the âcontested BiaÅowieża Forestâ, but also to other invaluable cross-border sites, in a manner adequate to contemporary realities. With this in mind, we have clarified the title of the book.
We have noticed that, nowadays, legal positivism in the narrow sense leads us astray and remains ineffective in the face of realities dominated by populism and incompetence. This raises the need to develop new instruments, but ones based on the classics. The research problem can be reduced to the question: can contemporary international law effectively protect invaluable cross-border sites? We hypothesise here: not fully and not always. The aim of our study is to propose a concept for the improvement of this protection with the use of the âcontested BiaÅowieża Forestâ as a case study.
We conducted our considerations on the grounds of law, jurisprudence and literature, with the use of press resources. What is essential, however, is sometimes invisible to the eye. Therefore, we want to thank those without whose support the book would not exist. Professor Malgosia Fitzmaurice â for inspiration and kind support, and foresters, naturalists, experts and residents of BiaÅowieża Forest â for consultations that allowed us to verify the vast amount of information and gradually shape our views. We are grateful to the University of BiaÅystok, especially the Faculty of Law, for its financial support in the preparation of the book. Special thanks are also due to Dr Anna Drabarz for linguistic support. Naturally, we are responsible for any imperfections. We invite you to read and discuss.
BiaÅystok / Warsaw, 2022