Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

is part of four

terrestrial ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and c ...

s, one

freshwater ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and c ...

, and one

marine ecoregion A marine ecoregion is an ecoregion, or ecological region, of the oceans and seas identified and defined based on biogeographic characteristics. Introduction A more complete definition describes them as “Areas of relatively homogeneous species ...

. These ecoregions are defined by the

World Wide Fund for Nature The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is a Swiss-based international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named th ...

(WWF) and its partners, which include the

European Environment Agency The European Environment Agency (EEA) is the agency of the European Union (EU) which provides independent information on the environment. Definition The European Environment Agency (EEA) is the agency of the European Union (EU) which provides ...

(EEA).

Terrestrial

Poland is part of the

Palearctic realm The Palearctic or Palaearctic is a biogeographic realm of the Earth, the largest of eight. Confined almost entirely to the Eastern Hemisphere, it stretches across Europe and Asia, north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The ...

, one of the eight

biogeographic realm A biogeographic realm is the broadest biogeography, biogeographic division of Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial animal, terrestrial organisms. They are subdivided into bioregions, which are further subdivid ...

s that cover the Earth's land surface. Poland has a humid temperate climate, and falls within two terrestrial

biome A biome () is a distinct geographical region with specific climate, vegetation, and animal life. It consists of a biological community that has formed in response to its physical environment and regional climate. In 1935, Tansley added the ...

temperate broadleaf and mixed forests Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is a temperate climate terrestrial habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature, with broadleaf tree ecoregions, and with conifer and broadleaf tree mixed coniferous forest ecoregions. These ...

and

temperate coniferous forests Temperate coniferous forest is a terrestrial ecoregion, terrestrial biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Temperate coniferous forests are found predominantly in areas with warm summers and cool winters, and vary in their kinds of plant ...

. Most of Poland's natural vegetation is deciduous woodlands of the temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome. Poland has three temperate broadleaf and mixed forest ecoregions: * The

Central European mixed forests The Central European mixed forests ecoregion (WWF ID: PA0412) is a temperate hardwood forest covering much of northeastern Europe, from Germany to Russia. The area is only about one-third forested, with pressure from human agriculture leaving the r ...

ecoregion covers the largest portion of Poland, spanning from Lithuania to Romania, and from Germany to western Russia. * Northwestern Poland is in the

Baltic mixed forests The Baltic mixed forests is an ecoregion in Europe along the southwestern coasts of the Baltic Sea. The name was coined by the European Environment Agency. The same geographical area is designated as "Northern Europe: Germany, Denmark, Sweden, an ...

ecoregion, which also includes the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

coastal regions of northeastern Germany, eastern Denmark, and southern Sweden. * The

Western European broadleaf forests The Western European broadleaf forests is an ecoregion in Western Europe, and parts of the Alps. It comprises temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, that cover large areas of France, Germany and the Czech Republic and more moderately sized parts o ...

ecoregion extends into southwestern Poland (PA0445), covering the Polish portion of the

Sudetes The Sudetes ( ), also known as the Sudeten Mountains or Sudetic Mountains, is a geomorphological subprovince of the Bohemian Massif province in Central Europe, shared by the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany. They consist mainly of mountain rang ...

mountains. The southeastern portion of Poland, lying in the

Carpathian Mountains The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe and Southeast Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Ural Mountains, Urals at and the Scandinav ...

, is within the Carpathian montane conifer forests ecoregion, part of the

biome.

Freshwater

Poland is part of the Central & Western Europe

. It encompasses the rivers and streams of western and central Europe between the

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

and

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages *Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...

seas to the north, and the

Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...

and

to the south.

Marine

Poland's coastal waters are in the

marine ecoregion. It is part of the Temperate Northern Atlantic marine realm.Spalding, Mark D., Helen E. Fox, Gerald R. Allen, Nick Davidson ''et al.'' "Marine Ecoregions of the World: A Bioregionalization of Coastal and Shelf Areas". ''Bioscience'' Vol. 57 No. 7, July/August 2007, pp. 573–583.

The World Wide Fund for Nature in Poland

The WWF is an international

non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...

(NGO) working on issues regarding the conservation,

research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

and

protection Protection is any measure taken to guard something against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although ...

of the environment. A branch of the World Wide Fund has operated in Poland since the early 1990s. In 1993, the ''WWF Polska'' succeeded in the creation of the Biebrza National Park followed in 1998 by the opening of its first permanent office in

Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the List of cities and towns in Poland, tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Biał ...

, which led to the creation of additional

protected area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewood ...

s including Ujście Warty Landscape Park, Krzesin Landscape Park and the Muskau Park (''Mużakowski Park Krajobrazowy'', added to UNESCO

World Heritage List World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural heritag ...

in 2004). In 2000, the new permanent office in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

became the headquarters of the foundation. An additional branch was set up in

Wrocław Wrocław is a city in southwestern Poland, and the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It is the largest city and historical capital of the region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder River in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Eu ...

which helped create the Ujście Warty National Park in 2001. The next year, WWF Poland petitioned the government into signing the

Kyoto Protocol The was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that global warming is oc ...

. In 2004 it organized a campaign against the illegal trade in endangered species resulting in new laws enacted by Polish Parliament, and in 2008 caused the cancellation of the Via Baltica expressway across the Rospuda valley. In recent years, ''WWF Polska'' volunteers removed the estimated 20 tons of abandoned nets from the Baltic sea, among numerous other projects.

References

{{Reflist

* Poland geography-related lists