GB No. 3, winter 1990/91
The Sudeten Mountains are located in the South - Western part of Poland at the border with Czechoslovakia. They are the most polluted mountains in Europe (they could be compared with the Erzgebirge Mountains in Czechoslovakia and former G.D.R. only). The worst situation is in two groups of the Sudeten Mountains named Karkonosze and Izerskie Mountains.
The Sudeten Mountains are covered mostly with coniferous forests which are very sensitive to air pollution - over 10,000 ha of forest have died so far, no tree has been saved. Almost every spruce is affected there. In Karkonosze and Izerskie Mountains 60,000 ha of forest are seriously damaged - they will be dead soon. About one third of all Lower Silesian forests are seriously ill (Lower Silesia is in the South - Western part of Poland, Wrocław is the center of it).
The same situation can be found on the other side of the border - in Czechoslovakia.
(pr)