Poleski

Polesie National Park was created in 1990 some forty kilometres north-east of Lublin, in south-eastern Poland, next to the Ukrainian border. It protects a fragment of Polesie, the vast wetland region that stretches across Poland, Belarus and Ukraine and forms one of Europe's largest marsh complexes.

The landscape is an almost flat plain occupied by transitional mires, fens, shallow dark-water lakes, waterlogged meadows and birch and pine woods on peaty soil. Its botanical uniqueness lies in the presence of relict tundra and boreal forest plants, survivors of the glacial periods that found refuge here in a cold, acid environment and have disappeared from the rest of central Europe.

The fauna includes elk, beaver, otter, stoat and wolf, along with a very rich wetland bird community in which the aquatic warbler is among the most valuable species, together with Montagu's and pallid harriers, shanks and great snipe; some 146 bird species have been recorded. It also holds populations of European pond turtle. In 2002 UNESCO designated the West Polesie Biosphere Reserve, and in 2012 this became part of a transboundary reserve combining the Polish park, the Shatskiy reserve in Ukraine and Pribuzhskoye Polesie in Belarus, with 263,016 hectares in all. The administrative offices of the Polish section are within the park itself.