Amber patrol

On April 18th, the Stogi police station and the Border Guard organised a joint daytime patrol to search for evidence of illegal amber mining, to which journalists were invited. We present to you a report from a few shared hours spent patrolling Gdańsk's amber-bearing areas.

Sobieszewska Island

We meet at the police station in Gdańsk's Stogi district. We get into two off-road vehicles, with the unmarked police car leading the way, closely followed by a Border Guard off-road vehicle. Driving towards Sobieszewo Island, one of the officers mentions that Stogi was always associated with illegal amber mining, and that they have largely managed to eliminate it today. We arrive at Sobieszewo Island, which is accessible by only two permanent roads; the main one is a pontoon bridge to the district centre.
We drive into a maze of forest roads and follow an disused sewage collector right next to the beach access points. This area is far outside the city, and very few people walk here out of season, so it's a fantastic spot for illegal prospecting. Next to exit number 13, we get out of the cars and walk through the forest to the sites where a patrol discovered illegal mining spots last year. The forest here looks terrifying: fallen trees, huge pits, and the most dangerous openings about 20-30 centimetres in diameter left by pumped-in water. Many of them go down several metres deep and, left to themselves, usually collapse after a while, creating large sinkholes with fallen trees, but some of them, even after a year, still retain the shape of a bulbous bottle – a small hole at the top and a large chamber below. You could break your leg in them or, worse, fall inside and get stuck or buried.

A game of cat and mouse

The police officers say it's a special place: a disused sewage collector running nearby supplies the water needed for hydraulic extraction, a lack of witnesses, and the extensive hilly terrain, which makes patrolling difficult, all favour illegal amber hunters. If there's no water in the collector, the criminals pump it with hoses directly from the bay – when they fit silencers to the pumps, it's hard to hear their sound against the noise of the sea. One of the police officers, pointing to a riddled forest and his knee, explains that people are surprised it's rare to catch any of the searchers red-handed.
– „These patrols of ours are a game of cat and mouse; we look for their tracks, and they look for ours: they watch where we go, they look for our boot prints. Once they laid traps with nails and felled trees to block the road” – they recount. The police officers speak highly of their colleagues from the Border Guard and ask for their role in joint patrols to be emphasised. Without their equipment, they would be able to do little. Thermal imaging cameras, night vision devices – the police can only dream of such equipment. – The Mayor of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz, intends to gift the Stogi police station with suitable equipment. We are currently awaiting a list of necessary purchases” – comments Robert Pytlos, the Mayor's plenipotentiary for amber, on this situation.

Environmental degradation and attempts to prevent it

We get back into the cars and continue on our way. Ahead of us is a fallen tree, so we choose another route, along wooded dunes. All the while, old amber digging pits stretch out beside us. Only when you know what to look for does the forest start to resemble one big, gouged-out area. Robert Pytlos, the Mayor of Gdańsk's plenipotentiary for amber, explains that the biggest problem with illegal extraction is the destruction of nature. „Fallen trees, pits dangerous for people and animals; I would like to see these areas rehabilitated,” he adds. The plans also include, in cooperation with the Police and Border Guard, bringing about changes to the regulations so that those caught illegally digging for amber are punished for environmental devastation and obliged to repair the damage caused by their activities, meaning the rehabilitation of the site.” Amber should be associated with ecology, not environmental degradation,” states Robert Pytlos.
Legal extraction initiated in recent months obliges companies to tidy up and reclaim the land after completion of work. Practically all municipal plots where extraction is taking place are derelict, abandoned allotments, or sites intended for future investment, roads, or port expansion, etc. Therefore, well-conducted extraction does not harm anyone. So far, in the only tender for the prospecting and documentation of amber deposits, 26 hectares have been leased, which means a monthly city income of 40,000 złoty. Further tenders for the next 50 hectares are planned for May.

Legal mining – a beautiful sight for amber prospectors

We are returning to Gdańsk and, taking Sucharski Street, we reach the abandoned allotments where the company Golden Amber from Lublin is conducting its search. The terrain is slightly marshy; there's a drainage ditch next to which a motor pump stands, and a bit further on, at the end of a water pipe, are three men. As they tell us, the work is hard but it's there. They work regardless of the weather, as long as the water doesn't freeze. One of them, Mr. Stanisław Bestow, supposedly one of the best "stick men" (tyczkowych), talks about the area where they are searching. Here, the amber deposits are exceptionally shallow, only 4 metres underground. At the same time, another man is rinsing small twigs that have emerged from the depths of the earth; they contain a lot of tiny amber pieces. However, the gentlemen explain that all that's needed is to pour such a mixture into a brine solution of the correct concentration: the twigs will sink, and the amber will float on the water. Three men extracting amber in the middle of a large, marshy meadow, on grounds marked with stakes and information boards, with residential blocks from the Stogi district in the background. Everything is legal. You could say it's a beautiful sight for amber prospectors.
Nearby is also a plot leased by Lucjan Nagórski, slightly smaller than the one we were at a moment ago. The entire area has had its topsoil removed, so that after extraction is finished, it can be covered with earth and returned to its original state. No one will know that amber was extracted here; there will be no pits or washed-out sand on the surface. Nature will quickly heal the small wound. Lucjan Nagórski talks about extraction, about how he worked for the state mining enterprise many years ago, and about treasures emerging from the depths of the earth – some time ago, pressurized water ejected a fragment of an oar and some floats that are placed on top of a fishing net. The oar and the floats, made of bark, came up from a depth of 8 metres. In the near future, he intends to donate them to the Amber Museum. „Without legal extraction, no one would ever care for such valuable artefacts,” states Lucjan Nagórski, an amber digger who has proven that to legally extract amber, one does not need to be the owner of a large amber company. As a sole proprietorship, he went through all the official and concession procedures, thereby becoming an example for other individual diggers, who are announcing their participation in the next tender.

Amber poachin

Legal recognition of deposits in municipal areas has significantly restricted illegal practices in this field, although it has not completely eliminated them. We are heading to the vicinity of the main beach at Stogi. We reached the place where in March, an illegal water pipeline made of fire hoses, over a kilometre and a half long and connected to a municipal hydrant, was found hidden in the forest litter. The area resembles moon craters, with many holes all around, posing a significant danger to people and animals. This is all just a few hundred metres from the beach and holiday resorts full of vacationers.
On the way back, the police officers complain that the amber miners they've caught are only charged with a misdemeanour rather than a crime. Hard work, but it's paying off – according to their estimates, since the start of legal extraction, they're finding nearly three-quarters fewer illegal holes.
The President of Gdańsk's plenipotentiary for amber, Robert Pytlos, recalls that only a few bidders applied for the first tender and that there was a great deal of distrust towards this initiative. However, significantly more interested parties are registering for the subsequent tenders planned for May, and they themselves are identifying potential locations for amber deposits. He also hopes that funds will be secured for the reclamation of forests damaged by illegal mining. Time will tell what comes of this, but let's keep our fingers crossed that amber, in addition to being called „natural,” will appear in jewellery without detrimental interference with nature.
Thank you to Stogi Police and the Border Guard for the joint patrol.

Photo: Michał Kosior