Assignment: Poland's forest frontier
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 30 November 2023
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Polish government has built a steel border wall 186km long and 5m high along its eastern frontier. It is meant to stop global migrants from Asia and Africa trying to cross from the Belarusian side. But the wall cuts straight through the Białowieza forest - the largest remaining stretch of primeval forest in Europe and a Unesco world heritage site. Grzegorz Sokol meets environmental scientists, activists and local villagers, such as Kasia Mazurkiewicz-Bylok who treks into the forest with a rucksack of supplies to try to help migrants lost in the dense, trackless forest. And, Kat Nowak, a biologist trying to log the precise effects of the wall, from the plant species brought in with the gravel for the foundation, to the possible effects on wolf behaviour.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Global Story, with Smart Takes and Fresh Perspective, on one big news story, |
| 0:07.8 | every Monday to Friday from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:11.3 | Search for The Global Story Story wherever you get your BBC |
| 0:14.8 | podcasts to find out more. It is the middle of the night. |
| 0:25.0 | The sky is clear and full of stars. |
| 0:30.0 | The unearthly sounds is the roaring of deer in the rotting seasons. |
| 0:40.0 | I am surrounded by the primeval forest of Biau Weja, |
| 0:45.0 | Pushta Beau Vieska, right on the Polish-Beller Russian border. I've seen some dramatic transformation, the construction of a steel wall and the border between Poland and Belarus. |
| 1:09.0 | We know that we are now sitting in the heart of untouched forest that has never been cut, never destroyed, |
| 1:17.6 | never burnt down by humans. |
| 1:21.7 | My name is Gregor Socco and I have come to Eastern Poland to find out what impact the |
| 1:26.6 | wall is having on both humans and wildlife in this ancient forest, unique in Europe |
| 1:32.1 | and a UNESCO world heritage site. |
| 1:34.0 | There is mega fauna here such as bison and wolf. |
| 1:38.0 | It's really precious in Europe and in the world. |
| 1:42.0 | The right-wing law and justice government built it as a Europe and in the world. |
| 1:42.5 | The right-wing law and justice government built it as a barrier, symbolic and physical, |
| 1:47.6 | against global migrants trying to cross from the eastern side. |
| 1:51.6 | 186 kilometers of steel slats stretching from Lithuania in the north to Ukraine in the south. |
| 1:59.6 | That's about half the length of the whole border. It splits the forest in two, half here in Poland and half |
| 2:06.2 | in Belarus. I'm not allowed to cross over or touch the wall, but for assignment on the documentary from the BBC World Service, |
| 2:15.2 | I'll be getting as close as I can. |
... |
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