09.05.2011. |
In accordance with Polish legislation, the
highest form of nature conservation is that of a natural park. This
protects nature’s resources and the processes of large areas
representing outstanding features of nature where it is relatively
intact.
At present there are 22 national parks in
Poland which cover almost 1% of the national territory. Among the Polish
mountain national parks, the Bieszczady National Park is the only one
which protects the nature of the Eastern Carpathians.
In
the rating of the Polish national parks (Denisiuk et al. 1991), the
Bieszczady National Park has an extremely high score and ranks third
only to the Tatra National Park and the Pieniny National Park.
It
is the outstanding natural attractions which placed the Bieszczady
National Park in a group of several Polish parks well-known outside
Poland (Białowieża, Biebrza, Tatra, and Bieszczady national parks) and
is listed the world over as among the most interesting national parks in
Europe.
This status of
international tourist attraction stems most of all from the presence of
natural ecosystems of the Carpathian primeval forest with sizeable
populations of large herbivorous and carnivorous mammals as well as
birds-of-prey. Another unique feature is the subalpine meadow zone with
interesting East-Carpathian plants and sites of occurrence of rare
alpine invertebrate species. These valuable attractions of the
Bieszczady park and the two landscape parks surrounding it decided that
the International Reserve of Biosphere “Eastern Carpathians” should be
established in the Bieszczady mountains.
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