Białowieża Forest
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How it came to be
Białowieża Forest, straddling the border of Poland and Belarus, is a remnant of the primeval forest that once covered the European plain. In the 15th century it became the property of Grand Duke Jogaila, Władysław II Jagiełło, and was kept as a royal hunting ground. In the 16th century Sigismund I made poaching a bison punishable by death.
After the partition of Poland in 1795 it passed to Russia, and in 1888 it became the emperor's private hunting reserve. The bison population collapsed during the First World War. The core of the forest became a national reserve in 1921, Poland bought four bison in 1929, and most of the forest was made a national park in 1932.
The Polish part was inscribed in 1979, the Belarusian part was added in 1992 and a large Polish extension in 2014. The forest now holds the largest population of European bison. Over large-scale logging in 2017, the EU Court of Justice ruled in 2018 that Poland had broken EU law.
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