Greenpeace activists protest over logging in Poland's primeval forest

Environment activists have protested over Poland's plans of extensive logging in Europe's last primeval forest and have demanded full protection for the rare Bialowieza woods.

Greenpeace members unfurled a banner above the Environment Ministry that read "(Make) All of the Forest a National Park" - a protective status that would ban logging.

Last month, Environment Minister Jan Szyszko approved extensive logging in the Bialowieza Forest, in north-eastern Poland, saying it was to help fight the spreading invasion of bark beetle, a kind of woodworm that attacks and kills trees.

The forest is on Unesco's World Heritage list and is home to hundreds of wild bison, more than 60 other species of mammals and hundreds of species of trees, plants and lichens.

It stretches into Belarus.