Chapter 10
Forest cover has grown without interruption since the war, Poland has the world's largest bison population, one of Europe's largest wolf populations and the continent's last primeval lowland forest. The weak points are concrete: water per head under half the EU average, afforestation collapsed, farmland birds in retreat.
Poland's nature has hard numbers that hold up against Europe: 29.6% of the country under forest (1945: 20.8%), over 80% of forests public and open to all, 39.6% of land under protection against 26.6% on average in the EU, 23 national parks visited by 16 million people a year, and the lowest share of threatened bird species in the Union. The strongest card is the large mammals — bison, wolf, lynx, bear, beaver and elk — whose populations have multiplied since 2000. The dark sides are shown by the same method: the water deficit, the Oder disaster and the collapse of afforestation.
Fig. 10.1
Share of forests in the country's area, %, 1945–2024 (Statistics Poland, geodetic area)
Fig. 10.2
Terrestrial protected areas, % of land area, 2024 (World Bank / WDPA), selected EU countries
In Europe's top tier: by share of protected areas Poland trails only Bulgaria in the Union. There are 2,699 m² of protected land per inhabitant — most in Warmia-Masuria (8,385 m²), least in Silesia (608 m²); the record holder is the Holy Cross region with 65% of its area under protection.
The Natura 2000 network (1,003 sites) covers 19.6% of the country — slightly above the EU norm, not at its top. The 23 national parks are only 1% of the area but draw 16.4 million visitors a year; the Tatra park alone receives nearly one in three of them.
Fig. 10.3
Numbers of selected protected species in Poland, individuals, 2000–2024 (Statistics Poland after GDOŚ; bison per the Pedigree Book)
The strongest card of Polish nature is its large mammals. The European bison — a species extinct in the wild in 1919 — numbers 3,060 in Poland today, more than anywhere in the world; the Bison Pedigree Book has been kept in Poland continuously since 1947. Wolf and lynx rebounded precisely after protection (1998 and 1995), bear and beaver after 1952; the elk, almost exterminated after the war, is today one of Central Europe's most spectacular comebacks.
The only large mammal in clear decline is the wild boar: −77% in a decade, the effect of African swine fever and sanitary culling.
Fig. 10.4
Parks, coast, mountains, birds
Poland is a lowland country with a narrow but very high mountain accent: over half its area lies between 100 and 199 m above sea level, land above 500 m is 3% of the country — and one peak reaches 2,499 m. In between: 687 km of coast, thousands of lakes, Central Europe's largest peat bogs on the Biebrza, and Białowieża Forest, Poland's only natural UNESCO site.
The birdlife surprises most: the share of species threatened with extinction is the lowest in the whole Union, and the crane has tripled in a quarter-century. The shadow of that story — farmland birds — is shown in the last chart.
Fig. 10.5
Renewable freshwater resources per inhabitant, m³ a year, 2021, selected EU countries
Statistics Poland says it plainly: “Poland is counted among countries poor in water resources.” Average resources are about 60 bn m³ a year — France has 206 bn, Sweden 184 bn — and in dry years they fall below 40 bn. The honest thesis is “at the EU's tail end”, not “lowest in the EU”: Germany, Czechia and Hungary have less.
The Oder disaster of summer 2022 — about 360 tonnes of dead fish, a toxic golden-alga bloom in a salinised river — showed how fragile the system is.
Fig. 10.6
Area of afforestation of non-forest land in Poland, thousand ha a year
The chapter's sharpest dark spot. The national afforestation programme, adopted in 1995, planted 270,700 ha in 1996–2024 — but in 2024 only 900 ha, thirty times less than in the record year 2003. The 33% forest-cover target for 2050 is unreachable at this pace.
The second shadow is the fields: the common farmland bird index has fallen by a quarter since 2000 — more slowly than the EU average, but in an unmistakably bad direction — while forest birds are gaining faster than anywhere in the Union.
Fig. 10.7
Forest cover — share of forest area in total area by voivodeship, %, 2024
Poland's forest is not spread evenly: the western edge of the country (Lubusz — almost half its area), West Pomerania and the Carpathians are wooded like Scandinavia, while central, agricultural Poland — the Łódź region, Mazovia, Kuyavia, the Lublin region — barely one-fifth. This is largely a legacy of soil geography (sands and mountains under forest, loess and black earth under the plough) and of post-war afforestation in the western lands.
The map is almost motionless: year-on-year differences fit within a tenth of a point, and national forest cover grows slowly but persistently, from 21% in 1945 to almost 30% today.
Fig. 10.8
Share of legally protected areas of special natural value in the voivodeship's area, %, as of 31 Dec 2024
The most interesting counterpoint in the whole set of maps. Holy Cross — demographically the oldest and one of the poorest voivodeships — protects two-thirds of its area (the Holy Cross Mountains, the Nida basin), Lesser Poland over half; Lower Silesia, one of the richest regions and the one with the most listed monuments, protects less than one-fifth. Natural wealth and economic wealth are thus distributed along different axes in Poland — an argument against reading the country in one dimension.
The numbers refer to area covered by any form of protection; two-thirds of it is protected-landscape area with a light regime, and national parks are 3% of the total (chapter 10, the chart “How much Europe protects”).
One graphic tells both the success and the slowdown: since the war forest cover has risen by almost nine percentage points, but since 2020 the curve has been flat. Polish forests are overwhelmingly common property and universally accessible — a rarity in Western Europe, where private forests dominate.
Why the curve stalled is shown by the chapter's last chart: the afforestation programme has practically expired.