Magurski

Magura National Park was created in 1995 in south-eastern Poland, in the Low Beskids, next to the Slovak border. It is a park of mid-altitude mountains, with summits barely above 800 metres, and its value lies not in the relief but in the extent and continuity of its forest.

Close to 95% of its area is covered by Carpathian forest of beech, fir and spruce, with patches of mature woodland of almost primeval structure. That forest continuity, extending southwards into Slovak territory and eastwards into the Bieszczady, makes Magura a key piece of the Carpathian corridor: one of the few places in the European Union where the three great European carnivores — wolf, lynx and brown bear — live side by side as stable populations, along with wildcat and otter.

The park is also a territory of notable forest and cliff birdlife, with golden eagle, lesser spotted eagle, black stork and several woodpecker species tied to deadwood. Its human history is marked by an absence: these valleys were inhabited by Lemkos, a Ruthenian Greek Catholic community, deported en masse after the Second World War. The villages were left empty and the forest recolonised the fields, so that much of what the park protects today is a rewilded landscape; among the vegetation, cemeteries, stone crosses and the remains of wooden churches can still be made out.