A World Heritage Site of 93 Beech Forests — Its Single Largest Component Is a Forest in Ukraine

The World Heritage site bringing together forests of European beech (Fagus sylvatica), “Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe,” consists, as of September 2026, of 93 locations across 18 countries. According to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre’s listing, it began in 2007 with 10 forests jointly inscribed by Slovakia and Ukraine, and 15 of the 93 locations are in Ukraine.

How has the name and extent grown over time? What are the 15 Ukrainian locations like, and where does the phrase “largest primeval beech forest in Europe” come from? An overview of Ukraine’s protected areas is covered in our article on Ukraine’s nature reserves, and a list of the country’s World Heritage sites in our article on Ukrainian cities and World Heritage.

A Record of a Tree That Spread After the Ice Age

The decision the World Heritage Committee adopted in 2007 (31 COM 8B.16) inscribed this forest under natural heritage criterion (ix) — for sites that are outstanding examples of ongoing ecological and biological processes. The current “Statement of Outstanding Universal Value” explains that European beech survived each ice age of the past million years in refuges in southern Europe, and spread across a wide area of the continent starting around 11,000 years ago, when the last ice age ended — a spread it states is still continuing today.

The same statement identifies “logging and habitat fragmentation” as the greatest threat to this site. Most of the component parts are legally protected as strict nature reserves or the core zones of national parks, with buffer zones set around them.

From 10 Locations in 2 Countries to 93 in 18

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre’s listing gives 2007 as the year of inscription, and records major boundary modifications in 2011, 2017, and 2021, and a minor modification in 2023. The Committee’s decisions, arranged by year, are as follows.

The current listing gives a combined area of 99,947.81 hectares for the component parts, and 296,275.8 hectares for the buffer zones.

Past Names and the Current Name

The site’s name has changed each time its extent has grown.

The 15 Locations in Ukraine

At the initial 2007 inscription, 5 of the 6 Ukrainian locations were within the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve, and 1 was within Uzhanskyi National Nature Park (IUCN’s 2007 evaluation report). The Reserve states that 20,980.5 hectares of the forest it manages became a World Heritage site in 2007. Of the 9 locations added in 2017, 4 are clustered within Synevyr National Nature Park.

Adding up the areas in UNESCO’s listing, Ukraine’s 15 locations total about 28,986 hectares, or roughly 29% of the entire site (a calculation made for this article). This is the largest total by country; second is Romania, with 12 locations.

A conservation plan approved by the Cabinet of Ministers in 2018 (Order No. 892) names seven institutions holding component parts — the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve, Uzhanskyi National Nature Park, the national nature parks “Zacharovanyi Krai,” “Synevyr,” and “Podilski Tovtry,” and the nature reserves “Gorgany” and “Roztochya” — and requires reporting from four oblasts: Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, and Khmelnytskyi. Although the site is named “Carpathian,” Roztochya and Satanivska Dacha are forests outside the Carpathian Mountains.

The Largest: Uholka–Shyrokyi Luh

At 11,860 hectares, Uholka–Shyrokyi Luh is the largest of the 93 locations in UNESCO’s listing (second is a Romanian component of 5,110.63 hectares). According to the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve, this forest lies on the southern slope of the Krasna massif (Polonyna Krasna) at an elevation of 380–1,350 m, and takes its name from the Mala Uholka, Velyka Uholka, and Ruzhanka rivers, tributaries of the Tysa. It states that beech forms a continuous band from 380 m up to the treeline, with trees exceeding 55 m in height, 130 cm in diameter, and around 550 years of age. IUCN’s 2007 evaluation report likewise cites beeches reaching 55 m in height and 130 cm in diameter, and 65 forest communities.

Another feature of this forest is its limestone outcrops and caves; the Reserve states that among the beetles and other creatures found in the caves are species found nowhere else in the world.

Who Says It’s “the Largest in Europe”?

Many texts describe this forest, or the site as a whole, as “the largest primeval beech forest in Europe,” but who is saying so, and what exactly is being compared, differs from source to source.

• IUCN’s 2007 evaluation report states, of the entire 10-location site across the two countries, that it “includes the largest remaining primeval beech forests in Europe” — not a statement about Uholka–Shyrokyi Luh alone.
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (IEU), published by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) at the University of Alberta (entry written in 2008), describes the Reserve’s Uholka–Shyrokyi Luh massif as “known as the site of the largest ancient primeval beech forest in Europe.” This entry gives the massif’s area as 15,580 hectares, which differs from the area of the World Heritage component.
• The Carpathian Biosphere Reserve’s own website says, on one page, “the largest continuous primeval beech forest in Europe,” and on another, “the largest continuous primeval beech forest in the world.”
• UNESCO’s current “Statement of Outstanding Universal Value” does not use superlatives like these.

We have not been able to confirm a primary source showing exactly which area was compared with which range of forest to arrive at “largest.” For comparison, UNESCO’s statement for Japan’s Shirakami-Sanchi (inscribed 1993) describes it as “the largest remaining primeval beech forest in East Asia” — a forest of a different species, Japanese beech (Fagus crenata), not European beech.

Conservation Under the Full-Scale Invasion

In its 2023 decision (45 COM 7B.20), the World Heritage Committee welcomed a legal amendment that bars logging and “sanitary felling” (logging carried out on grounds such as pest or disease control) in the buffer zones of Ukraine’s component parts.

In its 2025 decision (47 COM 7B.18), the Committee expressed “serious concern” over reports that the ongoing war is making it harder to manage Ukraine’s component parts and is increasing pressure on the use of land and resources, and asked Ukraine to report in detail on the impact. The same decision notes that the areas and shapes of the component parts Ukraine has reported differ from those approved at the time of inscription, and calls for the boundaries and protection status to be clarified. The deadline for a joint report from all 18 countries is December 1, 2026, and it is scheduled to be discussed at the 49th session of the Committee in 2027. Domestic rules on logging and timber exports are covered in our article on Ukraine’s forests and timber.