WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Environment activists have protested Poland's plans of extensive logging in Europe's last primeval forest and have demanded full protection for the rare Bialowieza woods.

Greenpeace members on Tuesday spread a banner on 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 northeastern 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, over 60 other species of mammals and hundreds of species of trees, plants and lichens. It stretches into Belarus.