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Belovezhskaya Pushcha / Białowieża Forest
Site number:
33
Type of site: Natural
Date of Inscription: 1979, 1992, 2014
Location: Europe, Belarus and Poland, Grodno Province (oblast) (BY) / Podlasie Voivodship (PL)
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Description: This immense forest range of evergreens and broad-leaved trees is situated on the watershed of the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. Rich with remarkable fauna the Białowieża Forest serves as a home to rare mammals such as the wolf, the lynx and the otter, as well as to some 300 European Bison, who were reintroduced into the park. --WHMNet paraphrase from the description at WHC Site, where additional information is available.
  This is an extension of and new proposal for the Belovezhskaya Pushcha / Białowieża transboudary site on the border between Poland and Belarus, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1979. Situated on the watershed of the Baltic Sea and Black Sea, this immense range of primary forest includes both conifers and broadleaved trees. The modification to the property translates as a reduction of over 5000 hectares on the Belarus side and a vast extension of the Polish section, from 5069 to 59,576 hectares. Covering a total area of 141,885 hectares, this transboundary property is exceptional for the opportunities it offers for biodiversity conservation. It is home to the largest population of the property’s iconic species, the European bison. --From the 2014 description at WHC Site, where additional information is available.
  Białowieża Primaeval Forest, known as Belaveskaya Pushcha (Белавеская пушча) or Belovezhskaya Pushcha in Belarus and Puszcza Białowieska in Poland, is an ancient woodland straddling the border between Belarus and Poland, located 70 km north of Brest. It is the only remaining part of the immense forest which once spread across the European Plain. This UNESCO World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve lies in south-western Belarus, in parts of the Brest voblast (Kamianiec and Pruzhany districts) and Hrodna voblast (Svislach district), and near the town of Białowieża in the Podlachian Voivodeship (62 km south-east of Białystok and 190 km north-east of Warsaw) in Poland. On the Polish side it is partly protected as Białowieski Park Narodowy, or Białowieża National Park. The National Park and World Heritage Site comprises 876 km². The border dividing 2 countries runs across the forest and it is closed for big animals and tourists as well, for the time being. The security fence keeps the wisent on either side of it genetically isolated from each other. The Belovezhskaya Pushcha headquarters at Kamieniuki, Belarus include laboratory facilities and a zoo where wisent (reintroduced into the park in 1929), konik (a semi-wild horse), wild boar, elk, and other indigenous animals may be viewed in their natural habitat. --Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Source: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/33
Reference: 1. UNESCO World Heritage Center, Site Page.
 
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