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Białowieża
Forest (Belarusian: Белавежская пушча, Biełaviežskaja Pušča; Polish:
Puszcza Białowieska Polish
pronunciation: [ˈpuʂt͡ʂa ˌbʲawɔˈvʲɛska] ( listen); Russian: Беловежская пуща, Belovezhskaya Pushcha) is one of the last and largest remaining parts
of the immense primeval forest that once stretched across the European Plain.
The forest is home to 800 European bison, Europe's heaviest land animal.[2]
UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) designated the Polish Biosphere
Reserve Bialowieza in 1976[3] and the Belarusian Biosphere Reserve
Belovezhskaya Puschcha in 1993.[4] In 2015, the Belarusian Biosphere Reserve
occupied the area of 216,200 ha (2,162 km2; 835 sq mi), subdivided into
transition, buffer and core zones.[5] The forest has been designated a UNESCO
World Heritage Site[6] and an EU Natura 2000 Special Area of Conservation. The
World Heritage Committee by its decision of June 2014 approved the extension of
the UNESCO World Heritage site “Belovezhskaya Pushcha/Białowieża Forest,
Belarus, Poland”, which became “Białowieża Forest, Belarus, Poland”.[7] It
straddles the border between Poland (Podlaskie Voivodeship) and Belarus (Brest
Voblast and Hrodna Voblast), and is 70 kilometres (43 miles) north of Brest,
Belarus and 62 kilometres (39 miles) southeast of Białystok, Poland. The
Białowieża Forest World Heritage site covers a total area of 141,885 ha
(1,418.85 km2; 547.82 sq mi).[8] Since the border between the two countries
runs through the forest, there is a border crossing available for hikers and
cyclists.