
The race to save Polesia, Europe's Amazon - jxub
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/06/the-race-to-save-polesia-europes-secret-amazon-aoe
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akhodakivskiy
To me this sound like a crappy piece of propaganda. This project is in the
national interest of Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine. They would profit from this
route, obviously. The underdeveloped region would get a nice boost. The
project is also against national interests of so many other countries that
profit from lack of such route, many in the EU, notoriously Russia, and many
others.

The caption “colorfully painted log cabin” under a photo of a dissolving
uninhabitable shack is priceless. Really makes me want to protect the region
from evil humans.

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dntbnmpls
Wish the title had "Rainforest" because the current title makes it seem like
Polesia is a european competitor to Bezo's Amazon that is struggling to
survive.

Also, isn't calling Polesia, Europe's Amazon as silly as calling Thames,
England's Nile? The amazon rainforest is almost the size of europe itself.

~~~
zoomablemind
Took me a while to make sense out of the title. It's a confusing analogy,
Amazon is river, Paliessie is mostly forests, bogs, with a number of rivers. I
understand the biodiversity context, but even changing the title to spell
Amazonas (it's a salad of meanings anyways) would make it less ambiguous,
perhaps more exotic.

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jungletime
I highly recommend buying a kayak to kayak through one of the swamp areas in
your region on a nice spring or summer day. Its really an experience for the
soul! Even in a cooler/cold climate, the amount of noise from birds chirping
really does make it seem like you're in the amazon. A total sensory experience
worth having. You can get a kayak for $300.

~~~
swiley
And the noise from the bugs. The bugs and frogs in the south US are incredibly
loud. Plus bugs are pretty dangerous, and on the water here you have snakes.

Idk I grew up next to the James river and it would take something incredible
to make me go back there.

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Razengan
Humans are more dangerous and make the most noise, I'd gladly brave bugs and
snakes to get away from them for a while.

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ajuc
Nice to sea Polesie on hackernews, even if for such reasons. My grandparents
lived there (in the Polish part near Włodawa), I spent every holidays in 90s
and 00s swimming in these lakes and biking through these forests.

It's a very pretty region, great for tourism (the default is forest, there are
clearings with lakes every few dozen kilometers, there's also some villages
and farming land, but mostly it's one huge forest).

It's very flat, and the roads (except the one that connects Lublin to Włodawa
and the country border) are almost always empty - so it's a paradise for
biking.

The villages are very poor even for eastern Poland standards, most young
people leave cause there's no jobs except for farming and some tourism in the
summer but still not much. I'd say the median age is over 40 in the
countryside or possibly more.

My grandfather was working for a local farming cooperative there during
communism, and they tried to dry the swamps for agriculture reasons. They were
also searching for coal (there's a coal mine in the region and there is a
possibility for some more).

The end result was that in that particular part (near Stary Brus - Kołacze -
Hańsk) it got much too dry, the ground water level dropped and it's almost a
desert now - ground is mostly sand, only pine trees and a few kinds of grass
grow there.

In the Polish part there is already an artificial lake (Wytyczno) and a
channel between some rivers (Wieprz-Krzna), but nobody really uses it for
transport. I don't think it makes much sense to build waterways there at the
cost of nature.

\- there's no industry to speak of

\- the population is sparse and poor

\- the border between Poland and Belarus on the Bug river is the external
border of the EU, it separates 2 opposing economic unions and blocks almost
all the trade

\- the next part downstream (Mazury lake district) is also underdeveloped
sparsely populated countryside with little money and lots of rare nature

If Poland, Ukraine and Belarus joined one economic union (preferably EU) - it
could maybe work, but as is it's useless investment with lots of harmful side
effects.

~~~
mongol
You mention it is great for tourism. I am intrigued. As a tourist, how would I
best get around in this area (longer distances), if I would not be cycling?
Rental car?

~~~
ajuc
If you want to travel fast you need a car there, yes. Public transport only
works well along the few main roads, outside of that it's like 2-3 buses a day
or none at all.

In any case traveling fast kinda misses the point, the fun stuff is in
between. If you don't want to bike you can rent a kayak and go down one of the
rivers.

IMHO the best way is to get a tent and a bike, take a train to some city
(Włodawa works), and bike for a week or two camping elsewhere each day. Best
time is June - late enough that there's lots of cheap fresh fruits everywhere
(you can buy them from farmers along the roads or just gather the wild fruits
in the forests), but before the school ends so even the popular lakes are
empty.

Also there's that [https://greenvelo.pl/en/map](https://greenvelo.pl/en/map) a
bike-only road that goes for over 500 km through most of the tourist spots in
the Polish parts of Polesie (and also later Warmia and Mazury). Less wild but
still cool. Easy flat terrain starts north of Chełm and continues all the way
to the Baltic sea,

BTW choosing a smiling scenic mask icon for museums wasn't the best choice on
that map, especially when you have a museum of a german death camp there :/

~~~
LargoLasskhyfv
I crosschecked that with
[https://www.darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html#7/51.283/22.7...](https://www.darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html#7/51.283/22.775)
so there should be some pretty good nightskies enjoyable with a large
binocular, or even a 5 inch Maksutov. How do you remember the weather to be on
average for the time (June) you suggested? Cloudy, hazy, or clear? With clear
i mean, could you when you camped somewhere in the forest, the campfire out,
your eyes used to the dark, see the milky way or some other faint smudges of
nebula with the bare eye?

~~~
ajuc
Yes you could see Milky Way pretty well on the moonless nights, even with
naked eyes. The weather should be 20-35 C, usually partial cloud cover but no
rain, sometimes no clouds at all, sometimes a quick thunderstorm, very rarely
you'd get a whole day of rain.

~~~
LargoLasskhyfv
That is good to know since this is so rare nowadays. Thank you. Will consider
that for some possible travel in the future.

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yread
There is a project with similar aim: the Danube-Oder-Elbe canal. It would
connect Black, Baltic and North Seas:

[http://www.d-o-l.cz/index.php/en/about-d-o-e-
project/current...](http://www.d-o-l.cz/index.php/en/about-d-o-e-
project/current-situation)

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pintxo
What’s the purpose to compare a waterway hundreds of km long and comprised of
5 rivers and various channels to the Panama and Suez channel? This is so
misleading.

~~~
al_chemist
It's a shortcut just like Panama and Suez channel. It changes travel time from
around few weeks to few days.

Panama channel allows you to not to go around America. Suez channel allows you
to not to go around Africa. This shortcut allows you to not to go around
Europe.

~~~
mkl
Yes, but most of the new route showed on those maps is existing rivers, so
it's not comparable at all as presented.

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leftyted
Is this region comparatively unspoilt because of the Chernobyl disaster? If
so, that's a strange kind of irony.

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myth_drannon
No, it's because it is mostly swamps. Totally unsuitable for agriculture.

~~~
contingencies
Agriculture is not the only thing humans do or settle for. Swamps are
historically heavily inhabited by and sometimes even purposefully extended by
humans specifically due to endemic biodiversity and ease of hunting and
gathering. Also, sometimes because they offer fertile soils or refuge from
other humans, and the waterways a strong source of orientation, food, and an
artery for transport, trade and taxation. Examples off the top of my head:
Bangladesh, Holland, Venice, Hanoi, Bangkok, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Angkor,
Amazon, Sepik River of PNG...

~~~
oska
Virtually all your examples are seaside marshes, not low-lying inland swamps.
But your example of Angkor is a good example of a low-lying inland swampy area
and, while for a period of history it was a productive, heavily populated area
it then experienced a population crash which has extended through to the
present day.

~~~
zisermann
I’d add Tenochtitlan which is Mexico now. It was a swamp surrounded by
mountains 500 years ago. Densely populated.

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joejerryronnie
Is it telling that I assumed this article was about a struggling European
ecommerce conglomerate?

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bobthechef
The article does feel a bit like propaganda. Environmental groups are
notorious in the region for being used as political instruments to halt all
manner of construction. When a new road is to be built, you’ll have
environmental agitators coming out of the woodwork claiming that the road
would cross a newly discovered frog habitat and that it would lead to the
deaths of many frogs trying to cross the road. Never mind that there are ways
to manage even those situations.

The important thing is to weigh the human benefits against the overall
negative impacts of a project. Environmental extremism generally smacks of
foreign interests trying to keep the status quo and the region from
flourishing economically and thus competing with them, or at least making
things economically inconvenient.

There is quite a history of such self-serving foreign meddling that involves
patronizing appeals to all manner of fashionable sentiment, hence my
skepticism.

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epicureanideal
It seems like the project would be very useful. I wonder what the
environmental benefits would be of reducing the distance ships need to travel
from AROUND Europe to through the E40 route? Might it outweigh whatever
environmental costs there are?

~~~
petre
Not quite if you consider geopolitical landscape.

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myth_drannon
It's strange but when I think about Poles'e I think about 'Come and See' movie
and the swamp scene
[https://youtu.be/Y60mnxzSD1Y?t=2992](https://youtu.be/Y60mnxzSD1Y?t=2992)

