Green Determination of the Silesia Region

The Katowice conurbation is undoubtedly one of the most ecologically degraded regions in Poland. The degradation of its natural environment has been caused by an intense concentration of mining, heavy, metallurgical and power-engineering industries on a rather small area that has also been subjected to urban development. However, surprising as it may seem, scientific data prove that the condition of the natural resources in Górnośląski Okręg Przemysłowy (GOP - Upper Silesia Industrial Region) is rather good and rare specimens of fauna and flora can be found there. This fact proves that the determination and strength of nature to regenerate itself is powerful, as is the determination and the instinct of the residents of Silesia.
Several years ago, in the territory of former Katowice province, a System of Protected Areas was established as a tool for integrated protection and modeling of the natural environment. It was designed, among other things, to ensure the territorial continuity of open spaces in the Silesia region and thus facilitate migration of birds and small game. The protected green areas, which are dispersed across the conurbation, create a unique network of green oases between residential and industrial areas in the form of parks, gardens, cemeteries, small rivulets, streams and even wastelands, where several species of fauna and flora, including protected ones, are spontaneously regenerating. In addition, water reservoirs, which have appeared in the place of derelict clay-pits, sandpits, waste pits and quarries, have become valuable to nature again.
In the Silesia region, the most valuable territories in terms of natural and landscape properties are now legally protected and new proposals for creation of more protected areas are being filed by environmental services. There are about a dozen nature reserves in the region (including forest, peat, floral and faunal reserves), which cover an area of ca. 1,500 ha. A further 14 areas are to be covered by this form of protection.
Landscape parks constitute another segment of the environmental protection program. In the immediate vicinity of the Katowice conurbation, sections of three such parks are located. Park Orlich Gniazd (Eagle Nest Park), Park Dolinki Krakowskie (Cracow Valley Park) and Tenczyński Park Krajobrazowy (Tenczyn Landscape Park), all constituting part of the Jurajski Landscape Park complex covering an area of 29,000 ha. Moreover, in 1994, Park Cysterskie Kompozycje Rud Wielkich  (Cistercian Compositions of Large Ores Park) covering an area of 50,500 ha, making it one of the largest parks in Poland, comprised of the valleys of the two largest Polish rivers: the Vistula and the Oder, was established.
This is not all, however. Individual natural monuments, such as old trees, historic tree-lines and parks, the Błędowska Desert, the Paprocany water reservoir in Tychy and the  Wielikąt pond complex in the Lubornia municipality also receive great care.

In the Katowice conurbation, the past decade has been devoted to making up for backlogs in environmental protection. Huge sums of money have been spent on investments in the development of the sewerage network and modernization of the heating system, which will make it possible to reduce emissions and communal waste. In a few years time, these efforts will trigger a true ecological revolution in Katowice. This will be best evidenced by the complete purification of the Rawa River, which not long ago was nothing more than a sewer. The performance of the project, which is not only extremely difficult, but also indispensable, will cost ca. PLN 250 million.
All these activities constitute a regional policy aimed at saving a devastated natural environment at any cost. Another small, yet meaningful example of these activities is the regeneration of the small, 8-km long Ślepotka brook in Katowice, whose bed was once deepened, straightened and covered with concrete. In the past, fish used to live in its waters and a water mill operated by the brook, which was also used for recreational purposes. Its original state will be restored, as far as it is technically and biologically possible. The determination to achieve this goal seems to be strong, as even the Central Mining Institute and naturalists from the University of Silesia have been engaged in work financed by the city of Katowice and the Provincial Environmental Protection and Water Management Fund.

If the resolve of Katowice authorities proves strong enough to regenerate the entirety of the natural environment in the Katowice conurbation, its ecological image and the widely held opinion of it as a dirty, smoky, and polluted city of factory chimneys and waste heaps will be changed soon. This is one of the reasons why Katowice regularly participates and achieves success at economic and political forums in Poland and abroad dealing with ways to save the natural environment. The latest evidence proving the city's success is the Honorary Plaque awarded to Katowice by the Council of Europe, as well as the rapidly changing image of the city as not only a reliable investment and business partner, but also a friendly place to live.
Marek Dański