President Duda signed the special act. This concerns investments in Jaworzno and Stalowa Wola

– The Act is dedicated only to two places in Poland, specific plots, marked in the annex; is an absolutely incidental act – emphasized President Andrzej Duda in Stalowa Wola on Saturday, during the act signing ceremony. He noted that the new law provides enormous development opportunities for two cities: Jaworzno and Stalowa Wola.

As the president emphasized, he would never agree to “a general mechanism that would allow forest land belonging to the State Forests to be allocated to economic areas, just like that.” – Here, in Stalowa Wola and Jaworzno, we are dealing with a special case – assured the president, emphasizing the need for industrial reconstruction of these areas.

The president of Jaworzno defended “lex Izera” and convinced ecologists

Environmental associations collected signatures online to appeal to Andrzej Duda not to sign the special act regarding the acquisition of forest land for these investments. They were supported in this by former Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The non-partisan mayor of Jaworzno, Paweł Silbert, defended the special act, called “lex Izera” by its opponents.

The politician explained that the area where the Izera factory was to be built is a post-industrial area. “It is a mining heap filled with barren stone extracted hundreds of meters from the ground, which is flat only because it was heaped in the workings of another mine – sand. The area is crossed by railway lines, high-voltage lines and heat pipelines,” assured the mayor of Jaworzno.

According to a local government official, no naturalist will find even a square meter of natural habitat. “There are eight million tons of mining waste there,” he continued. He recalled that 20 years ago, pine branches several centimeters high were stuck into the “barren desert.” “The forest stand is of low quality and this is also how foresters perceive it,” Silbert added in the letter.