Biebrzański

Biebrza National Park was created on 9 September 1993 in Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland, along the river Biebrza. At 592.23 km² it is the largest of the twenty-three Polish national parks. Its area breaks down into 254.94 km² of marsh and peatland, 181.82 km² of fields and meadows and 155.47 km² of forest.

The Biebrza marshes are its most valuable part: a system of fens of enormous extent and relatively little altered, something exceptional in Europe, where this kind of wetland has been drained almost entirely. The river meanders uncanalised and generates a shifting mosaic of abandoned meanders, fens, wet meadows and riverine woods that floods seasonally. The best-known area is Czerwone Bagno, the Red Marsh, known for its primeval character.

Its ornithological value is of the first order. The Biebrza valley, together with that of the Narew, is a fundamental centre for the breeding, feeding and resting of waterbirds, with more than 270 species recorded. The aquatic warbler breeds here, one of the most threatened passerines in Europe, and so do the greater spotted eagle, the great snipe, the western capercaillie, the black-tailed godwit and the ruff, which on the spring migration can form flocks of thousands of birds. Among the mammals, the elk stands out — the park holds one of the most important populations in Poland —, along with beaver, otter, wolf and roe deer. In 1995 the park was designated a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention, and it forms part of the Natura 2000 network. Its main threat is drying out and the advance of scrub and woodland over the wet meadows, which calls for active management of the water and of mowing.