The legal basis for implementation of the system for environmental protection in Poland is a bill, dated Oct. 16, 1992. According to the international convention initialled by Poland and other countries during the United Nations convention in Rio de Janeiro, the system should ensure the protection of biological diversity. This means that certain activities will be undertaken in order to:
– protect the gene pools existing in populations of all species,
– prevent the extinction of species,
– prevent the destruction of ecosystems, which were created in different climatic zones in a natural way, or by man in course of his economic activities.
The state of nature in our country is quite varied. There are areas such as the Silesia-Cracow agglomeration, Turoszow and Konin brown coal-basins, Belchatow Industrial District, Legnica-Glogow Copper-Basin, and Tarnobrzeg Sulphur-Basin, whose natural resources are highly degraded as a result of the long-term influence of destructive factors. But other areas have well preserved natural resources, whose quality is unequalled in Europe. This is mainly the case in the northeastern part of the country: Suwalki, Olsztyn, Bialystok, Lomza and Ostroleka voivodships, which together form the so-called Green Lungs of Poland. This is an area of 46,000 km², which amounts to 14.7% of the territory of Poland. Forests occupy 29.6% of this area and form the following six great complexes called a Puszcza (primeval forest): Puszcza Augustowska, Puszcza Borecka, Puszcza Knyszynska, Puszcza Piska, Puszcza Romincka and the most valuable – Puszcza Bialowieska. In Puszcza Bialowieska fragments of original primeval forests were preserved. Their total area is 59,000 ha. 11,000 species of animals live in these areas and 200 of them are protected. Within the borders of the "Green Lungs" area there are two national parks (Bialowieski and Wigierski), nearly 150 nature reserves and 5 landscape parks.

The Bieszczady Mountains are the second area which is very important for its natural values. They occupy about 21,000 km². Beech and fir tree forests grow on over 60% of their surface. The unusually rich flora of the Bieszczady Mountains include 900 species of vascular plants, while fauna of the vertebrates includes nearly 200 species. Among them there are bison, bears, wolves, wild cats (Felis silvestris) and lynxes.

In our country there are many more areas which, although relatively small, have natural values. Particularly valuable are the Bory Tucholskie, Roztocze, Polesie Lubelskie, and Brodnica Lake District.

According to national ecological policies a cohesive ecosystem of protected areas is supposed to include over 30% of the territory of the country. Today these areas occupy over 22% of the area of Poland.

National parks, nature reserves, landscape parks and protected landscape areas are the spatial forms of nature preservation in Poland. There are new forms such as documentation stands, ecological usage areas, and nature-landscape complexes.

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