In October logging was started on the area of xerothermic grasslands included in the Life+ project. Till the end of this year, we are going to cut down trees on 20 hectare in the area of Nature 2000: Dolna Odra, Ujście warty (NW Poland) and Żurawce (SE Poland). Removing of trees and bushes is one of main methods of xerothermic grasslands protection. Most commonly, the xerothermic grasslands have low soil quality for agriculture, therefore farmers abandoned those areas. As a consequence, the lands overgrown with trees and bushes in the process of natural succession or - in some cases - were afforested by people. Actually, the logging takes place close to Błeszyn (Odra river) and in Machnowska Góra reserve (Żurawce). In both cases the main goal is to remove invasive tree species. In the Błeszyn district Robinia pseudoacacia is the most abundant species, whereas in Machnowska Góra reserve Pinus nigra, planted here in 70's, is the most common. Moreover, in both districts bushes of Prunus spinosa are cut off and bushes of Juniperus sp. are thin out with the help of selective cutting. It is worth to note that our target is not to cut off all trees and bushes species. We act according to the rule that mosaic, heterogeneous xerothermic grasslands are much more appropriate and rich in species than homogeneous, tree- and bush-free grasslands. Following this strategy old trees and impressive bushes are left, as well as broken trees or dead trunks which are so important for many rare insects. We also do not cut off bushes overgrowing borders of the grasslands since the bushes is such localization act as a buffer and fences and their presence here is desirable.

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