Within the last 200 years, and particularly after the World War II, nature of the Western Europe has been drastically devastated by human economy – simplified, flattened, deprived of many species and many relations between ecosystems. This has led to dramatic decrease in the number of plant and animal species, some of them have even become extinct. The natural environment was replaced by the civilized environment of humans – urbanized, permeated with technology, polluted.

Changes caused by economic development in our country were slower than in the west of Europe. This is why now some species and habitat types which have disappeared in the West, still exist in Poland. Moreover, populations of many species are more numerous in Poland, but most importantly many ecosystems in Poland have preserved their original components. The abundance of plants and animals in Poland is amazing. The majority of these plants and animals occur in the agricultural areas, which are very diverse - with tree-groups and small water bodies.

Ages of nature protection in Poland helped to save fragments of the great European primeval forest – Puszcza Bialowieska (Bialowieza Forest). There we can see how nature of Central Europe used to look like and research the real ecosystem, which has never been damaged by humans. It is the best place to get to know the laws of nature.

Polish nature is much less transformed and less devastated than nature in the Western Europe and visitors form abroad notice it at first glance. Many Englishmen and Dutchmen who remember their countries from the 1950s and 1960s, sigh when they see Polish nature: "This is how I remember nature of my childhood. I never thought I would see it again, and I found it here, in Poland."