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Świadomi Tatr | odc. 5 | Gdy noc nie zapada. O zanieczyszczeniu światłem — Transcript

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0:21Another day is ending.
0:23The last tourists are disappearing from the trails.
0:25Dusk is slowly falling over the Tatras.
0:28The forest's nocturnal residents will begin to emerge from hiding.
0:32For some it's the time to roam and find food.
0:35For others, a chance not to become that food.
0:53For the Park's staff every night is an opportunity to
0:56observe how the Tatra animals live,
1:00when for a few hours they get their home back.
1:05But do they really get it back in full?
1:29Darkness is of enormous importance to animals.
1:31Many animals are nocturnal, so they use
1:36this darkness to hunt, to protect themselves
1:42from predators, to hide from
1:44predators in this darkness.
1:46These are very complex relationships.
2:06I had an apartment on the slope
2:07of Gubałówka, I used to rent an apartment.
2:09I had a beautiful view of the Tatras.
2:11And that's when I saw how a single
2:14small headlamp, how you can see it from afar.
2:17Stepping out onto the terrace, I saw two,
2:21three people coming down with a lit flashlight
2:25somewhere there after sunset.
2:28Well, what will that light change?
2:30But the moment there's no other light, there's no
2:33competition, there's, let's say, absolute darkness,
2:38well then even that tiniest light is visible.
2:42Even though it's a weak bulb, a weak little light,
2:45someone just lighting their way
2:46some headlamp, a little lamp.
2:48I light my way, I shine a bit of light on something.
2:54Light will probably be the biggest
2:57problem, mentally, in convincing people
2:59that it has any impact at all.
3:05For us it's convenience and safety.
3:10For animals it's an unexpected threat.
3:18I had trouble explaining to people, to
3:21not be in the mountains at night,
3:23back when there was no ban yet, right?
3:25Because it irritated me that people simply walk around
3:28mindlessly, shining those flashlights,
3:30some flashlights are very strong and can
3:33really light up the surrounding space.
3:36And a thought came to my head.
3:39And I say to the guy like this.
3:41What would you do if someone walked around your bedroom
3:44and shone a flashlight?
3:48And the guy was speechless then.
3:57It's not only about the headlamp,
3:59about the light that beams from that headlamp, but also
4:04the very presence of these people in the mountains.
4:06Let's remember that, in the Tatras,
4:105 million people show up.
4:145 million person-entries.
4:15That's an enormous number of people.
4:18During the day barriers appear in the form of
4:21walking people, where the wildlife
4:24isn't able to migrate.
4:26This night is the only period
4:28when they have some greater peace.
4:31They have the chance for this within-range migration.
4:35If we're still there,
4:38we spook them, we make their living harder.
4:44And there's no need, in fact,
4:45to walk the Tatras at night.
4:48The Tatras are small, practically every spot is
4:50reachable within a few hours, so walking at night
4:55in a situation where during the day there are already so
4:58many of us, has no justification whatsoever.
5:06The National Park's boundaries protect nature from
5:09our physical presence, but they can't
5:12protect it from the effects
5:14of our presence all around.
5:17As a result, over the Tatras for years
5:19true darkness no longer falls.
5:22Light is a phenomenon similar
5:24to noise in the Tatras.
5:26These are inseparable phenomena
5:28tied to the presence of humans.
5:32And it's known that the source of this light is facilities.
5:35Hostels, the cable car to
5:37Kasprowy Wierch, but also the town itself.
5:41This glow beaming from the town also lights up the Tatras.
5:50At night the light reaches everywhere, except the caves...
5:53And when I come down from the Tatras to Zakopane in the evening,
5:58the light simply hits me.
6:22Probably nothing in recent years
6:24has changed so much for the worse in the environment
6:26as light pollution.
6:28Simply the number of LED lamps, their low cost,
6:33very strong light,
6:35which until now was unheard of,
6:37means that there's
6:39a great deal of this light everywhere.
6:41On properties, in gardens, in places where once
6:44nobody used bulbs at all
6:46because... well, it was extravagance.
6:48As a result, this change
6:49is very fast, for the worse.
6:51And for now you can't see any
6:54black-and-white effects,
6:56negative effects on the environment.
6:57Which doesn't mean there aren't any.
6:59The town is expanding. New ski lifts are springing up.
7:02Just look
7:03at Białka Tatrzańska, how it shines all around.
7:06And that glow also affects...
7:08well, it reaches the Tatras.
7:09It reaches those higher surfaces.
7:12You can see it.
7:13That too gets in the way of
7:15true darkness appearing.
7:18I think it's worst in winter, when the lights above
7:23Białka Tatrzańska, Kotelnica, where the
7:25ski resorts are, they,
7:28those resorts operate until 10 p.m.
7:31And the light illuminating
7:33the ski runs reflects.
7:36And simply over the Gliczarów range, over the area
7:41of Bukowina the sky is simply lit up.
7:44When I drive to Zakopane at night, then from Nowy Targ to
7:49Zakopane, the whole time on the left side I see
7:53this glow of light.
7:56The issue of light pollution, or rather
7:58access to a dark sky, is
8:01an expectation of a certain group of tourists.
8:04As a result the Tatras,
8:05certain parts of the Tatras, should stay dark.
8:08And luckily there are such places in
8:10the Tatras that are simply dark.
8:12These are places far from, whether the cable car to
8:15Kasprowy, or from the hostels.
8:18Places that this glow
8:19beaming from Zakopane doesn't reach.
8:23So the fauna certainly has, or rather there are such areas of the Tatras,
8:28where this darkness can be experienced.
8:34To see the universe the way
8:36our ancestors saw it,
8:38today you have to find a place where humans haven't
8:41yet managed to light up the sky.
8:44So astrophotographers travel hundreds
8:47of kilometers in search of true darkness.
8:54We came here precisely to cut off
8:56this light pollution a bit.
9:00Peaks like Mała and Wielka Kopa Królowej
9:03cut us off from Zakopane,
9:05from that light pollution, which at
9:08first glance may not be large.
9:11Especially for those people who live
9:13in Kraków, or in Warsaw,
9:15or in the Upper Silesian conurbation.
9:17There you can see, I don't know, 100–200 stars
9:20and that's the max you can see at night.
9:22Well, here in Zakopane I think that in good weather
9:26it's about 500–600, maybe up to 1,000.
9:29And here in this place where we are, we'll probably
9:31see around 3, maybe
9:33even 4,000 stars with the naked eye.
9:36Which is already a very nice number, but when we're
9:40under a really, really dark sky,
9:42then that number of stars reaches a good several thousand,
9:46even close to 10 thousand, and that's a sight that
9:50doesn't exist in Europe at all.
9:54Because urbanization on our European continent
9:58is so great that practically
10:01there are no such places free of lights.
10:04And we have a surprise, because there's
10:07a space station flying across the sky here.
10:10Oh, I still have to adjust it.
10:13There it flies.
10:15The International Space Station.
10:28Light perhaps doesn't so much destroy as disorient the wildlife.
10:32Especially the migrating kind that uses
10:35the stars for its migration.
10:38We're talking of course about birds
10:41and they can simply be disoriented
10:44by the appearance of some
10:45point of light unfamiliar to them.
10:49I like photography, taking night shots.
10:52Once I set out for such
10:54shots to Dolina Jaworzynki.
10:56I wanted to photograph the Milky Way.
11:01And practically, I didn't take a single photo
11:04of stars or the Milky Way.
11:07Why? Because it was the time
11:10when people were just coming back from the mountains.
11:15I set up the camera, took a few dozen photos,
11:18over sixty, it seems.
11:21And I combined them into one. In fact I wrote an article
11:24on the subject in our quarterly Tatry.
11:28And I called it The Luminous Trail.
11:34People speak of ecological barriers, right?
11:36Well, one of the ecological
11:37barriers is simply artificial light.
11:42So it can disrupt
11:43migration, if you go to Rysy at night.
11:46Many people, I remember,
11:49there were once such preliminary estimates,
11:52that at night 40 people between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.
11:59were passing in the direction of
12:01Morskie Oko with the intention of going up Rysy.
12:04Well, if that many people go and
12:06everyone shines a light, then a barrier forms,
12:09which a migrating bear
12:12may be afraid to cross.
12:15It's a kind of soft barrier, because someone there will say
12:18that, well, the clearing of this spot is, I don't know,
12:23one per mille of the forest area, right?
12:27But there was a bottleneck there
12:28and you happened to clear it right here.
12:29Or you put a lamp in this spot, right?
12:31And someone will say, well, but next to it there are
12:33a thousand lamps, and this is the thousand-and-first.
12:35But it's unfortunately in such a spot that
12:39causes, well, that light
12:41also creates such a wall and there's a barrier.
12:45Sometimes special bridges are built for animals
12:49and they, notice, are tightly enclosed.
12:53They often have, out of wood, these walls, practically.
12:57Precisely so that the light, whether of the cars
13:00that come by, or indeed some
13:03possible, in the case of interchanges,
13:05some street lamps,
13:07don't light up that spot.
13:10In general, with the long-term impact on a population
13:12of animals or plants it's the case that
13:16these are many years of small actions,
13:20which, well, aren't directly noticeable.
13:23They do, however, accumulate, because they don't
13:26act in a black-and-white way,
13:28they simply don't kill.
13:29It's a bit like
13:31smoking cigarettes, right?
13:32If we died from the first cigarette lit,
13:35well then no one who wanted to live
13:37would use those cigarettes.
13:47Marcin Warchałowski has observed for years how
13:50light pollution
13:51successively encroaches on the world of animals,
13:54for which darkness has always
13:56been the natural environment.
14:02This appearance of artificial
14:04light undoubtedly disturbed things,
14:05that is, that, let's say, 18th- or 19th-century
14:09bat lived in absolutely different foraging
14:13realities than the one that lives in the 20th
14:15or 21st century.
14:19Bats of course move in the dark with
14:21the help of echolocation, but they're not blind.
14:24You can see that perfectly in photos.
14:25They simply have eyes and they see.
14:27As a result, bats undoubtedly very
14:30easily determine the level of light intensity.
14:35And so it is with their emergence flights.
14:39Well yes, I do know such scientific
14:41reports that say that this intense light
14:45simply holds
14:48bats back from flying out.
14:50As a result they don't take in
14:53food, there's a disruption, right?
14:54When they fly out of the roost, for a few seconds
14:57they fly out, check how
14:59bright it is and fly back in.
15:02But it will eventually leave that roost, risking
15:04even a predator, because precisely,
15:08it has to drink something, it has to eat something,
15:10it has other needs.
15:12Artificial lighting means that the food chain,
15:15balanced over millions of years,
15:16is becoming ever more disturbed.
15:19For some it makes getting food easier, from others it takes it away.
15:24A moth flies to the light.
15:25As a result
15:27this light that's already in the Tatras themselves,
15:29because we're talking now about the Tatras themselves,
15:32well, it's simply an element that draws them in
15:38and research shows that one third
15:41of nocturnal insects don't live to see dawn.
15:52Nocturnal insects pollinate plants
15:54more efficiently than daytime insects.
15:56Their mass death strikes
15:58at the very heart of Tatra flora.
16:01Fewer pollinated flowers means fewer seeds,
16:05and consequently a drop in food
16:07for birds and smaller mammals.
16:10Step by step this can
16:12destabilize the mountain ecosystem.
16:21On Park grounds, whether signing contracts,
16:24or issuing some permits,
16:25we pay attention to the matter of light
16:27and to making sure there isn't too much of this light.
16:33We also include this matter
16:35in our educational programs.
16:37We point out that it is,
16:40an excessive amount of light,
16:41or light in general, is pollution.
17:12In the Tatras there are several hundred caves
17:14and only some of them are opened up,
17:15whether for tourist traffic, or for caving.
17:19But the Park's main task, its mission,
17:21is to protect what we have in it.
17:23If we're to keep nature close
17:25to the most natural state possible,
17:27then it's clear that every human impact,
17:31human presence, disturbs that natural state.
17:35Caves are such a place, practically the only one,
17:39where we can experience total darkness,
17:43when no light of civilization reaches.
17:48On the surface, there are already very few
17:52such places in the Tatras and actually
17:54in many protected places too.
17:56The glow of light both from Zakopane,
17:59and from Kościelisko reaches, in
18:01nice, cloudless weather,
18:04several kilometers into the Tatra valleys.
18:07Meanwhile the light that comes from the hostels
18:12practically illuminates, on a nice
18:16night, illuminates whole valleys.
18:20One of the things we did actively,
18:23when it comes to light,
18:24we got rid of, the sort of permanent
18:26light in the Mroźna Cave.
18:30There's no more light there, no more lamps that
18:32were there for many, many years.
18:34Now, to enter that cave,
18:36you have to take a headlamp with you,
18:38so I consider it a small success
18:41on the battlefield against light.
18:44We won't go any farther this way, we'll go around,
18:47because there's quite a lot of water.
18:50We'd have to swim, but we've got a bat here.
18:54They're still hibernating.
18:59"Wodnik Szuwarek"
19:03There was a cartoon like that.
19:06The matter of light is also
19:07tied to the problem of its color.
19:09There's light that decidedly more
19:12attracts insects, for example,
19:15and there's a kind, more amber, red actually,
19:19that insects,
19:22that doesn't draw insects.
19:23So again we come back to the topic of education.
19:26This too is about education, that is, that if I already
19:29use light, I go with a headlamp,
19:32to use precisely the kind of light that will
19:35have as little impact as possible on the natural world.
19:39There are already studies that confirm this,
19:42that the color of light, the hue of light,
19:44is of very significant importance.
19:47And in this scope too we will certainly,
19:51in the coming years, strive to also
19:55change the color of light in the Tatras.
19:57So that it's less intense.
20:01Campsites are a good example.
20:03At campsites people rather use this kind of
20:05discreet, red light,
20:08and not a great lamp on the forehead,
20:11that lights up half of...
20:13many square meters around.
20:17But this is a story about that raising of awareness,
20:20education, about further educational programs,
20:23which are certainly ahead of us.
20:29You have to be aware that
20:32sometimes, to a very limited degree,
20:36point-source light can be beneficial for bats,
20:39because it gathers insects near the lamps,
20:42and the bat flies up to those lamps and has a very high
20:45density of insects in a very small space.
20:48As a result, the probability
20:50of catching prey rises considerably.
20:52And it's an easy canteen for the bat,
20:55but this disturbance of the distribution of insects,
20:59this disturbance in the occurrence of bats too,
21:03is undoubtedly not a natural phenomenon.
21:04The occurrence of artificial light has meant
21:07that certain animals could either
21:10fall into its feeding grounds, or drop out.
21:13When we conduct some monitoring over many years,
21:16we can get excited that each year we have,
21:20for example, a larger number
21:21of bats in some roost,
21:23but the most important goal, somewhat hidden,
21:26of this monitoring,
21:28is noticing some sudden changes,
21:30that is, a sudden drop. Because it means
21:33that we suddenly have to consider
21:35what has changed in the environment,
21:38that within two or three years
21:39we have some demographic collapse.
21:42What factor caused this number to drop?
21:54We conduct constant monitoring out of a need
21:56to understand the world we want to protect.
21:59Not everything, however, can be noticed right away.
22:03The effects of some changes we see
22:05and understand only after many years.
22:08Sometimes it's easier for us to understand them when we convert
22:11the natural dependencies into something well known to us.
22:16There's an American way of thinking and they're able to
22:22put a price on the value of animals.
22:25They believe animals serve certain functions for us,
22:29which can be measured in dollars.
22:32With bats in particular it can be very easily
22:35calculated, because they're insectivorous in Poland,
22:39and so they eat insects that very often
22:42are considered pests by farmers.
22:46So one can conclude that if they didn't exist,
22:48they'd have to apply more chemicals,
22:52and that costs, and... and then you get that specific number.
22:57In general, mammals are originally rather nocturnal.
23:04That is, evolutionarily mammals descend from such
23:07proto-mammals that lived somewhere, precisely in the dark,
23:11among the leaf litter, scurried among some
23:14dinosaurs and did it at night.
23:18That is, they led some secretive way of life,
23:21that's when they hunted, but mammals are rather nocturnal.
23:24It's humans... and it seems to me
23:27that all mammals are rather diurnal.
23:30No,
23:31the activity of most mammals
23:32actually falls at night.
23:47For the natural world to live normally
23:50and function at night, we don't have to do anything great.
23:54It's enough to simply turn off the light.
23:58Not only the animals will benefit from this.
24:00Above our heads the stars will appear again,
24:03the ones we've managed to forget.
24:07And we, maybe, will finally notice that
24:10we're not alone on this planet.
24:12That right next to us a parallel,
24:16so beautiful and so fragile nocturnal life goes on.

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