The Białowieża Forest World Heritage site is one of the last remaining primeval forests in lowland Europe and is a refuge for European Bison (Bison bonasus), the largest land mammal on the continent (Table 1). A decade‐long conflict about how to protect and sustainably use Białowieża Forest (Schiermeier 2016) has been exacerbated recently by a plan for a 5‐fold increase in logging in Białowieża Forest District (Ministry of Environment [MoE] 2016) and an outbreak of spruce bark beetles (Ips typographus), an insect that kills weakened spruce trees. Despite protests, a controversial decision backed up by State Forests to increase logging in Białowieża was approved in March 2016 by the Polish Ministry of Environment (MoE 2016). The primary reason given for increased logging is the urgent need to address the beetle outbreak, which has affected over 30% of the trees and is thus threatening the entire ecosystem. Logging was identified by forest scientists as the best way to fight the beetle (Trębski 2016). Executives of the State Forests organization contend foresters are not attempting to profit and that limits on logging were determined by independent experts who considered the welfare of trees and species diversity (Sowa et al. 2016). However, ecologists claim that logging is inefficient and that dead wood is indispensable to the functioning of the forest (Grodzki et al. 2006), pointing out that the largest outbreaks of the beetle occurred in areas where sick and dead trees were being logged. Moreover, for logging to effectively control the beetle, 80% of the infested trees would need to be removed (Fahse & Heurich 2011), which was not done in Białowieża (Bobiec et al. 2016). Activists have blocked logging on a regular basis.