Virgin beech forests in the Carpathians

Virgin beech forests of the Carpathians

Virgin Beech Forests in the Carpathians is a protected area located on the territory of Slovakia (Vigorlatský les, Havešová, Rožok, Stužica) and Ukraine, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2007. It consists of ten separate reserves located along a 185-kilometer-long axis that stretches from the Rakhiv Mountains and the Chernogorsk Massif in Ukraine, passing in the west to the Polonin Mountain Range, up to the Bukovské Vrchy and Vigorlat Mountains in Slovakia.

General information

All ten reserves are examples of intact forests, which are complex ecosystems of the temperate climate belt. Conditions are preserved here that allow for the most complete studies of the ecological structures and growth processes of European beech in different locations.

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The beech forests of the Carpathians are an invaluable genetic repository of beech and other wildlife species that exist in its neighborhood and depend on the ecosystems conditioned by it. These forests, too, testify to the processes of restoration and development of terrestrial ecosystems and settlements that began after the last ice age and have continued until the present.

The average age of trees in virgin beech forests of the Carpathians reaches 300-400 years, but there are even older giants! Century-old beeches stretch up to 30-50 meters, the trunks of these trees can be up to 2.5 m in diameter. Sometimes, in an effort to avoid being killed by wild animals, beech trunks take on a bizarre, unusual shape. Neighbors of beeches in the virgin beech forests of the Carpathians are rare plants listed in the Red Book of Ukraine: snow-white snowdrop, forest lily, Hungarian lilac, berry yew, as well as other beautiful flowers and shrubs.

On June 28, 2011, the site was expanded to include the ancient beech forests of Germany.