Poland names three new Ramsar Sites

Poland has designated three diverse mountain wetland complexes as Wetlands of International Importance. It now boasts 19 Ramsar Sites.

Czerwone bog woodland - nature reserve (Ramsar Site no. 2339) is a rare complex of three bog habitats of European importance: transition mires and quaking bogs; bog woodland; and active raised bogs. The raised bog has a well-developed dome covering around 35 hectares and overgrown with pine and sphagnum communities. The dome is surrounded by transition mires, which are overgrown in places by shrubs of pine or birch.

Noteworthy species include the nationally threatened common sundew Drosera rotundifolia, the pine Pinus x rhaetica and black grouse Lyrurus tetrix. The Site is actively managed: much of the scrub was removed from the dome of the peat bog in 2012 and new shoots are removed every two years.

The other two Sites both contain numerous separate areas within the Tatra National Park. Glacial lakes in the Tatra National Park (Site no. 2340) includes the small lakes of the High Tatra mountains and their immediate surroundings, together with the Dudowe Stawki ponds and the Siwe Stawki lakes in the Western Tatra mountains.

The marshy lake banks and the adjoining peat areas provide habitats for some notable vascular plants such as the Alpine bulrush Trichophorum alpinum and the rush Juncus triglumis which is limited in the Polish Carpathians to the Tatra mountains only. The mosaics of dwarf-pine scrub, grasslands, tall grass swards and the lakeside wetlands provide habitat for the boreal-alpine form of the bluethroat Luscinia svecica svecica, which is protected in the Tatry Natura 2000 site.

Peat bogs in the Tatra National Park (Site no. 2341) consists of four separate areas representing diverse types of mountain wetlands of European importance, and almost all typical Carpathian wetland types such as mountain raised bogs, transition mires and quaking bogs, small dystrophic lakes and Bazzanio-Piceetum spruce forest.

The plant life is dominated by numerous sphagnum and sedge species including the rare Carex pauciflora and Carex limosa. Animal species of interest include the Carpathian newt Lissotriton montandoni and dragonflies such as the bog hawker Aeshna subarctica and the Alpine emerald Somatochlora alpestris. The Site’s spruce forests provide habitat for the western capercaillie Tetrao urogallus.

The peat bogs are of great importance for carbon storage, while all the Sites are valuable for monitoring and research as well as tourism and recreation.