State Forests (Polish: Lasy Państwowe, full name: Państwowe Gospodarstwo Leśne "Lasy Państwowe", National Forest Holding "State Forests") is a Polish governmental organization that manages state-owned Polish forests on behalf of the Polish State Treasury. The organization does not have a legal personality and is required to be financially self-sufficient.
The Act on Forests of 28 September 1991, with amendments, makes the State Forests responsible for "forest management to ensure general protection of forests, sustainable maintenance, continuity and sustainable use of all forest functions and increase of forest resources".
It was founded in 1924 and oversees about 7.5 million hectares (an area that constitutes about 25% of Poland's territory) of forested terrain. The territory managed by the State Forests covers about 77.8% of Polish forests. Notably, State Forests do not manage Poland's National Parks. They are however involved in managing of forests in Landscape Parks (which cover about 8% of Poland's territory).
A state forest is a forest that is administered or protected by some agency of a sovereign or federated state, or territory.
The precise application of the term varies by jurisdiction. For example:
The purpose of a state forest varys between countries and the quality of the landscape it covers. In most places, state forests are divided into land for logging plantations, area for conservation, area for livestock grazing and area for visitor recreation.
Coordinates: 52°N 20°E / 52°N 20°E / 52; 20
Poland (Polish: Polska [ˈpɔlska]), officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska, listen ), is a country in Central Europe,bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine and Belarus to the east; and the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad Oblast (a Russian exclave) and Lithuania to the north. The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres (120,726 sq mi), making it the 71st largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe and the sixth most populous member of the European Union, as well as the most populous post-communist member of the European Union. Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions.
The establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a longstanding political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th-century Europe. The Commonwealth ceased to exist in the years 1772–1795, when its territory was partitioned among Prussia, the Russian Empire, and Austria. Poland regained its independence (as the Second Polish Republic) at the end of World War I, in 1918.
Poland is the name of some places in the U.S. state of New York:
Poland is a historical novel written by James A. Michener and published in 1983 detailing the times and tribulations of three Polish families (the Lubonski family, the Bukowski family, and the Buk family) across eight centuries, ending in the then-present day (1981).
Michener was hired by a television company to travel to a foreign country to shoot a documentary. He was offered support to go anywhere in the world and Michener decided to make the trip to Poland. Following this, Michener made several trips back to Poland and conducted extensive study of Poland's history and culture. He began writing the book in 1979 and it was published four years later.
Like Michener's other works, he includes an acknowledgments section at the beginning of the book; however due to the political turmoil in Poland at the time, Michener decided not to include the names of the people he traveled with for fear of persecutions against them. He writes: "Normally, as I have done in my other novels, I would list their names, their impressive occupations, their achievements in research and scholarship, but I cannot ascertain whether in the present climate this would hurt or help them."