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EUROPE’s last bastions of true wilderness – and the unique animals that roam in them – are under threat. A rush to build dams and motorways in eastern and south-eastern Europe in the name of economic development means rare flora and fauna could soon be gone for good.

Environmental campaigners are up in arms, but these projects have the potential to greatly improve the lives of people living in the region. Is it fair to make them bear the cost of maintaining Europe’s last truly wild places, when richer Western Europeans devastated their own wildernesses long ago? Or are there benefits to wildernesses beyond the environment?

The International Union for Conservation of Nature as “usually large unmodified or slightly modified areas, retaining their natural character and influence, without permanent or significant human habitation, which are protected and managed so as to preserve their natural condition”.

But not all wilderness areas in Europe are either mapped or have formal legal protection. This process is normally done by a country’s environment ministry, says , but due to a lack of capacity, funding or perhaps just interest, it isn’t always happening in eastern Europe.

Even with legal protection in place wildernesses still aren’t safe. Take the Białowieza forest in Poland, home to some of the last European bison. Despite being designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site and being protected by the European Union’s Birds and Habitats Directives, more than 10,000 of its trees have been cut down this year alone. In July, the European Court of Justice ordered an immediate suspension of logging, but the Polish government has ignored the ruling. It claims the logging is intended to combat an outbreak of bark beetles that would otherwise cause around €750 million in environmental damage. Critics claim the real motive is commercial.

“The destruction of spruce trees by the beetle is a natural process that creates a more resilient forest,” says , Poland. “The beetle is just a handy alibi for commerce.”

“Campaigners are up in arms, but these projects could greatly benefit people living in the area”

Trees are also under threat in Romania, home to around two-thirds of the EU’s remaining ancient woodlands. “Those areas have been legally protected [by Romania] since 2008, but the law is not properly enforced,” says , a non-profit organisation based in Germany.

In Bulgaria, a group of NGOs have submitted a legal complaint to the European Commission about plans to build a highway through Kresna gorge, which is home to many protected species, including the leopard snake and griffon vulture.

The EU-funded project is intended to provide an important link between Germany, Greece and all the countries in between, but Robbie Blake of says the road should avoid the gorge. An increase in traffic on an existing small road in the gorge is already harming wildlife, he says – for example, 92 per cent of all protected bats are gone.

Environmentalists accuse the Bulgarian government of trying to rush through environmental permits for the motorway in order to meet EU budget targets – it €800 million in funding if the road is delayed.

Dam boom

Meanwhile, on the border of Macedonia and Albania, UNESCO has warned that Lake Ohrid is in danger. The lake, dubbed Europe’s Galapagos, is one of the oldest in the continent and home to more than 200 species found nowhere else on the planet. Despite this, the region is being jeopardised by infrastructure projects such as a ski centre, says Aleksandra Bujaroska, an environmental lawyer from Macedonia.

Some of these developments have green credentials, such as hydropower dams intended to reduce carbon emissions from power generation. The industry receives financial incentives to help meet renewable energy targets under the Paris climate agreement, but it can be hugely damaging to wilderness.

“In a 2015 study we identified more than 800 actively planned hydropower plants across the wider Balkan region,” says Pippa Gallop at , a network of grassroots environmental groups in central and eastern Europe.

This boom in south-eastern Europe is partly the result of lax implementation of existing national and European legislation. “Our analyses show that infrastructure project applicants, financiers and authorities in the Balkans are systematically ignoring EU directives,” says Schwaderer.

This is also true in countries that wish to become EU members. For example, dams on the Vjosa river in Albania, which has applied for EU membership, violate an EU directive saying the ecological condition of surface waters must not be deteriorated by such developments.

“The exploitation of these resources is carried out in the most primitive way without adequate environmental protection measures,” says Aleksandar Perovic at Ozon, an NGO in Niksic, Montenegro.

Locals who live near areas under environmental pressure have differing views on the developments. Some, like Robert Oroz from Fojnica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, are attempting to resist. He has been fighting to prevent a dam being built on the Zeljeznica river for over 10 years. “In 2012 and 2013, for 325 days without interruption we prevented the entry of machines with our own bodies,” says Oroz. One of the biggest difficulties in resisting development is limited access to information, he says.

Other people are unconcerned about the loss of natural habitats. Rivers, old forests and endangered species don’t pay the bills, they say, so why should people live in poverty to protect them?

But damaged ecosystems can cause problems for local residents. In the Carpathian mountains, for example, floods and landslides occur more often and are more severe in regions where forests are harvested on a large scale. And in 2014, following extensive logging, the Balkans was .

“There can also be a direct negative economic impact as a consequence of logging,” says Michael Brombacher at the Frankfurt Zoological Society in Germany. “This happened in the Romanian Carpathians, where large scale deforestation led to the closure of thousands of small and local sawmills in favour of a few large international timber processing plants.”

One solution is for countries to show people how they benefit from the natural environment using the idea of ecosystem services, says Simon Boyle at UK consultancy firm . This gives a real value to wilderness, by accounting for the food, medicine and culture these regions provide.

“Rivers and old forests don’t pay the bills, so why should people live in poverty to protect them?”

“This will include well-being for humans, habitat protection to endangered species, ecotourism. So wilderness can ‘pay the bills’ of local people if it is used correctly,” says Boyle. A suggests ecosystem services are worth $145 trillion a year globally.

Clearly, it is unrealistic to call for an end to all development in eastern and south-eastern Europe. But leaving the remaining wildernesses as they are will have greater benefits to the local population in the medium to long term than exploiting them for short-term extractive resources, says at the University of Leeds, UK. “They are the gift that keeps on giving.”

This article appeared in print under the headline “The end of the wild”