Unesco puts Polish beech forest on World Heritage List
A beech forest in the Bieszczady Mountains, in the south-east corner of Poland, has been placed on Unesco's World Heritage List, Unesco’s World Heritage Committee has announced.
The forest, which is located in the Bieszczady National Park, has become part of Unesco's World Heritage Site, the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe.
The transnational World Heritage serial site now comprises 94 component parts across 18 countries, Unesco said.
The Bieszczady beech forest has been listed among similar forests in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, France, North Macedonia and Switzerland.
Beech forests in Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Ukraine are already on the list.
The Polish beech reserves cover an area of some 3,300 hectares.
"The extended property represents an outstanding example of relatively undisturbed, complex temperate forests and exhibit a wide spectrum of comprehensive ecological patterns and processes of pure and mixed stands of European beech across a variety of environmental conditions," Unesco said in a press release.
The Bieszczady National Park covers an area of almost 30,000 hectares, making it the third biggest national park in Poland. It is the habitat of the brown bear, wolf and lynx as well as a range of predatory birds.
