ABSTRACT
This chapter presents important background information about environmental protection in Poland before and during the transition to market democracy. It provides a general analysis of the determinants of environmental performance, including Poland's environmental policies and the many institutions that have, at different times and in various ways, impeded or facilitated those policies. Communism may have been the dirtiest social order ever constructed, and People's Poland was perhaps the dirtiest of communist countries. The diverse and self-assertive civil society of People's Poland—exemplified but by no means limited to the trade union and social movement known as 'Solidarity'—deserves a large measure of credit for the destruction of the old system. The fact that the market, the state, and civil society have reinforced one another has been good news for Poland's natural environmental. There are signs that the 'easy' stage of virtually automatic environmental improvements in Poland is being replaced by what may prove to be an even more 'interesting' stage.
