A Natura 2000 habitat protection area in central Wielkopolska, sheltering lake chains, oak forests, and peatlands within the Puszcza Zielonka forest complex.
Uroczyska Puszczy Zielonki
Uroczyska Puszczy Zielonki is a Polish Natura 2000 Special Area of Conservation located in the Wielkopolska region, northeast of Poznań, within the larger Puszcza Zielonka forest complex and the surrounding Puszcza Zielonka Landscape Park. The site was formally designated on 1 March 2011 and covers roughly 1,496 hectares spread across the communes of Pobiedziska, Czerwonak, and Murowana Goślina in the Poznań district. Its purpose is to safeguard a connected mosaic of natural habitats and the populations of threatened non-bird animal species in a heavily settled part of the country.
The protected area is not a single contiguous block but a collection of four ecologically linked enclaves. These include a stretch of the Trojanka river valley with four eutrophic lakes, the eutrophic Lake Bolechowskie surrounded by oak-hornbeam forest, a compact oak grove forest east of the village of Huta Pusta, and a postglacial channel with the small lakes Małe Czarne, Duże Czarne, Kociołek, and Pławno. A fifth notable zone centers on Dziewicza Góra, where oak-hornbeam (grąd), acidophilous oak forest, and species-rich meadows come together.
Because the area draws together lakes, kettle-hole wetlands, peatlands, deciduous forests, and riverine corridors only a short distance from a major urban center, it plays an outsized role for biodiversity conservation in the Poznań Lake District. Its Lake District setting, shaped by the last glaciation, gives the site its characteristic pattern of deep postglacial channels and shallow eutrophic basins.
