Can WarWilding defend Poland’s borders and save Europe’s last ancient forest?

Filed 1h ago · Via Mongabay · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Medieval Loop One

Alexander Nakarada · creatorchords.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Rijksmuseum · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Poland's $2.6 billion East Shield border fortification project, meant to deter Belarus and Russia along a 700-km frontier, has run into resistance from scientists who warned that concrete barriers and drainage would devastate the ancient Białowieża Forest, home to 900 European bison, lynx, wolves and thousands of fungi species.

Researcher Michal Żmihorski proposed an alternative called WarWilding, restoring wetlands and carr forest so dense with water and dead wood that tanks cannot pass, and the Polish Ministry of Defense formally adopted the approach in 2025. In May 2026 the climate ministry committed roughly $120 million to rewet peat bogs and marshes along the Russian and Belarusian borders, citing both defense and wildfire resilience.

Critics, including a University of Warsaw yearbook, call the broader East Shield concept an anachronism in an age of drones and missiles, while military officials insist infantry will still need to cross on foot. Little has changed on the ground so far beyond the funding announcement.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Using a swamp to stop an army is the kind of idea that sounds like a joke until you remember armies have been getting stuck in mud since before anyone kept score. It is hard not to like a defense plan whose chief weapon is wet dirt and patience. Whether it actually stops a drone is a separate question nobody in this piece claims to have answered.

Source: Read the original at Mongabay → Scored: Medieval Loop One · Alexander Nakarada · CC BY 4.0