Forest owners charged steep fine for ignoring bark beetle

The owners of a small forest near Hradec Králové have been fined 360 thousand crowns for not completing an order to fell 320 square metres of trees infected with the bark beetle, which has devastated forests around the country. The order was issued in the summer of last year, and much of the forest was felled accordingly, however the beetle still spread to neighbouring forests. The owners appealed the fine unsuccessfully to the Ministry of the Environment on the grounds that they wanted to create a wilderness using the method of non-intervention employed in the Šumava National Park in Southern Bohemia, a protected wilderness that has been particularly hard hit by the bug.