Narwiański

Narew National Park was created in 1996 in Podlaskie Voivodeship, downstream of the Biebrza and in the same wetland region of north-eastern Poland. It protects a stretch of the Narew valley that constitutes a hydrological rarity in Europe: an anastomosing system, in which the river does not run in a single channel but opens into dozens of branches that separate and rejoin endlessly among dense reedbeds, forming a labyrinthine network of slow-water channels. That appearance has earned it the nickname of the Polish Amazon.

The result is a wetland of almost continuous marsh vegetation, with reedbeds, bulrush beds, waterlogged meadows and willows, over a peaty bed. Conserving the system depends on the natural flooding regime, and its main threat is hydrological alteration: drainage and canalisation upstream, together with the abandonment of traditional meadow mowing, favour the advance of woody vegetation and the loss of open habitats.

The park's value is above all ornithological. The density of breeding waterbirds is very high, with reedbed and wet meadow species, and the valley works as a migration corridor alongside that of the Biebrza. Among the mammals, the beaver stands out, very abundant and decisive in the dynamics of the channels, along with the otter. The usual way to explore the park is by boat or along boardwalks, since much of the territory is impassable on foot.