Kampinos WetLIFE — Rewetting the Kampinos Forest Natura 2000 Site (Poland)

Kampinos Forest, immediately west of Warsaw, was extensively drained by channel-digging that began in the mid-19th century, desiccating its marshes and pushing out rare wetland plants and animals. Kampinos WetLIFE (LIFE19 NAT/PL/000746, 2020-2026) is the second EU LIFE project targeting this Natura 2000 site, led by Kampinos National Park with REC Polska, and financed by the EU LIFE+ fund together with Poland's National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, at a total budget exceeding EUR5 million.

The project aims to raise groundwater levels across 6,141.5 hectares of Natura 2000 habitat by reversing 19th-century drainage, alongside restoring low-intensity farming, controlling invasive species, and planned land purchase for conservation.

The project's central engineering works are 15 permanent dams on the forest's three main watercourses (the Lasica, L9 and Zaborowski channels) plus 12 further dams on secondary channels, the creation of 35 new ponds, and naturalisation of more than 8,000 metres of previously straightened drainage channels. Monitoring includes LiDAR-based elevation mapping of the forest to model water flow, plus ongoing groundwater and channel-flow measurement; land-management components include restoring extensive, low-intensity farming on 108 hectares of meadow, invasive-species control, and a planned purchase of 80 hectares of land for conservation.

As the project runs to 2026, most reported figures to date are engineering targets and installed-infrastructure counts (27 dams, 35 ponds, 8,000+ m of naturalised channels) rather than final ecological outcome data (species recovery, water-table trends); independent post-project evaluation has not yet been published.