Logging Is Threatening 'Europe's Serengeti'

You may well not have heard of Poland’s Białowieża Forest, but perhaps you should have.

This vast 835 square-mile woodland straddling the Polish-Belarusian border—it’s pronounced “Bya-Woe-Vye-Zha”—is unlike anywhere else on earth. It’s a “European Serengeti” of mixed-leaf old growth forest, seamed throughout with ancient tree stands untouched by humans, a place that shelters the continent’s largest population of vast, shaggy European bison. An inland ocean of green, its heart has UNESCO World Heritage status, with oaks predating Columbus’s voyage to the Americas and a deep, silent core sheltered far from roads and houses. Right now, however, the forest is under serious threat.