The issue of constitutional protection of natural resources does not arouse the interest of lawyers, including constitutionalists, in Poland. In none of the drafts of the new Constitution of the Republic of Poland presented after 1989 was this issue regulated. After the new Constitution of the Republic of Poland came into force in 1997, no draft amendment to this act dealing with natural resources was submitted either. The constitutional surveys conducted in 2011 and 2017 did not explicitly call for a complete or even very extensive amendment of the Constitution. Most often, they indicated the need for punctual amendments or concerning certain areas of constitutional regulation. In light of the experience with forest management, it would be advisable to extend constitutional protection to all strategic natural resources.

The consequence of establishing a health resort is the special rigour of protecting the territory covered by it. The rigour consists i.a. in a ban on mining mineral resources other than natural medical resources, engaging in land development or other works that influence water relations as well as engaging in activities that have a negative influence on the physiography of the health resort. The facts of the case lead to a conclusion that it also does not concern the inside of the earth’s crust ‘under’ the health resort. The dispute as the subject of the judgement voted on concern mining hard coal from a deposit lying several hundred metres below the surface of the resort. The company has had a concession for mining it for years, while it applied for a confirmation of an annex to the plan for moving the mining establishment engaging in such activity. According to the Supreme Administrative Court, the opinion of the municipal executive authority, in whose opinion the change that the company applied for would violate the purpose of the property defined by the health resort status, was lawful. However, many arguments speak for the incorrectness of the assessment.