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Board of the Wetlands Conservation Centre

 

dr Łukasz Kozub – Head of the Board

I have a PhD in biological sciences and graduated from the Inter-Faculty Studies in Environmental Protection at the University of Warsaw. I currently work at the Department of Plant Ecology and Environmental Protection at the Faculty of Biology at the University of Warsaw. The subject of my doctoral thesis concerned methods of natural restoration of low peat bogs and is related to the LIFE project "Motylowe Łąki" (Butterfly Meadows) implemented by the Wetlands Conservation Centre. My interest in nature developed thanks to my hobby – fishing, which prompted me to spend time surrounded by nature by rivers and streams, as well as to explore interesting corners of the country. Professionally, I deal mainly with low peatlands, but recently also more broadly with other non-forest ecosystems, such as meadows and grasslands. The area with which I have been associated since the beginning of my adventure with nature is Mazovia, but I also travel to interesting regions of north-eastern Poland, Pomerania, Świętokrzyskie or Lublin. I am also familiar with other interesting natural areas of Europe. I usually get involved in volunteer activities related to active nature conservation carried out by the Centre.

 

 

Jan Kucharzyk – Member of the Board

Born in 1987. I am a PhD student at the Department of Plant Ecology and Environmental Protection at the Faculty of Biology at the University of Warsaw. From my earliest years I had the opportunity to interact with nature – from the beginning my interests focused on botany. In May 2001, on a meadow near Ciechanów, I saw "orchids" for the first time – in reality, blood orchids and broad-leaved orchids – which until then I associated with flower shop shelves. Since then, my adventure with native representatives of the orchid family began, and their observation and study have become my greatest passion. For several years, I have devoted the most scientific attention and time in the field to two species: the lady orchid (Orchis purpurea) and the autumn lady’s tresses (Spiranthes spiralis). Traveling around Poland in search of orchids, I also discovered a passion for observing other representatives of our flora, especially the rarest ones. Currently, I can happily combine my passion with the work that botany has become for me. Apart from plants, photography, mountains and traveling occupy an important place in my life.

j.kucharzyk[at]bagna.pl

 

 

dr hab. Wiktor Kotowski, prof. UW – Member of the Board

I am a year younger than the Ramsar Convention. I fell in love with peat bogs as a child, when I visited them with my parents (I absorbed the profession of a field biologist with my mother's milk). Maybe that's why, as a biology student at the University of Warsaw, I was easily drawn into the mission of protecting and restoring marshes during a student exchange in Groningen, the Netherlands. Since then, I have become more and more stuck in the mires: today I have no doubt that marshes are the most beautiful places on Earth (I used to think it was mountains...). I co-founded the Association “Let's Protect Wetlands!” – today the Wetlands Conservation Centre, and I am also active in international organizations with the same profile – Wetlands International and the International Mire Conservation Group. On a daily basis, I research the functioning of marsh ecosystems and teach about them at my alma mater, the Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw, and in the rest of my time I talk about the relations between humans and nature – with students (at work) and anyone else who wants to listen to me (after work). My favorite activity at the Centre is the annual organization of the wetland festival on the anniversary of the aforementioned convention.

w.kotowski[at]bagna.pl

   

dr hab. Ewa Jabłońska, prof. UW – Member of the Board

I try to learn about and understand nature by conducting scientific research, but I also feel a bond with it and the destruction of nature awakens in me sadness, rebellion and an inner need to save it. I have been in the association since its establishment, I have led, among others, a peatland educational project for children and active wetland protection projects, I have been involved in current guarding activities aimed at protecting the nature of rivers and peat bogs, I run (with breaks) the bagna.pl website. I am an ecologist-botanist, I work at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Warsaw.

e.jablonska[at]bagna.pl

 

   

dr Magdalena Suchora – Member of the Board

Wetlands are in my life professionally and privately. Professionally – as invaluable archives of environmental changes, tirelessly documenting what is happening around them from the moment of their creation (several thousand years ago) to the present. As a paleolimnologist, I am constantly fascinated by discovering these stories and the practical use of knowledge flowing from them. My scientific haven is the Faculty of Earth Sciences and Spatial Management at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, where since 2017 I have been co-organizing the local edition of the World Wetlands Day celebrations. Privately, wetlands are a beautiful and unfortunately endangered part of nature for me, which has already sent us a huge amount of non-verbal signals that the attempt to conquer every wet patch of Earth very quickly turns against humanity. The activity in the Wetlands Conservation Centre is an opportunity for me to verbalise and publicise this message, but also to search for and implement knowledge – and experience-based scenarios for peaceful, beneficial coexistence of wetlands and people. Although for many years I have been drawn to the wetlands of Finland through some weeks spent on vacation there, the wetland region closest to me geographically and emotionally is Polesie.

 

 

The Wetlands Conservation Centre Team

  

Monika Łaskawska-Wolszczak – Director

My love for nature was instilled in me by my grandfather, with whom I traversed Poland far and wide. Later, I became fascinated with kayaks – once I got on a boat in Przemyśl, I finished the trip in Świnoujście. From the thicket of interests in the world and people around me, the idea of ​​interdisciplinary studies sprouted. I graduated from the Inter-Faculty Individual Studies in Mathematics and Natural Sciences (MISMaP) at the University of Warsaw with degrees in geography and psychology.

My entire professional life has been associated with nature conservation, social activation and development cooperation. I have built a seaside volunteer network, the so-called WWF Blue Patrol, which has been operating for a dozen or so years, I have led projects to protect sea mammals and birds, developed foreign programs, including in Mongolia, Malaysia and Myanmar, and supported the Nature Conservation Department of the WWF Poland Foundation as its director. The escalation of the war in Ukraine in February 2022 brought me to the crisis team of the Ukrainian House in Warsaw, which I helped to grow into a large organization. I also worked in advisory bodies related to development cooperation and humanitarian aid, including as a member of the board of the Zagranica Group and a member of the Development Cooperation Program Council at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

At the Wetlands Conservation Centre, I primarily care about the development of the organization and building partnerships so that together we can protect and restore wetlands on an increasingly large scale. You are very welcome to cooperate with us!

m.laskawska[at]bagna.pl

 

 

 Magda Galus – Social Engagement Coordinator

I am a graduate of the Inter-Faculty Studies in Environmental Protection at the University of Warsaw (MSOŚ UW). I have been interested in environmental protection since primary school. It started with recycling and conscious consumption, then there was environmental education, the impact of investments on the environment, social conflicts on an ecological background, fair trade and climate change. Towards the end of my studies, I got involved in the activities of the Wetlands Conservation Centre, especially in environmental education (among others, I am the author of the wetland game) and active nature protection campaigns. In 2013-15, together with Paweł Pawlikowski, we implemented the project Active protection of endangered natural habitats in nature reserves in Mazovia and Podlasie. In my free time, I observe nature, dance, create organisational tables and make noise on the agogo. 

At the Centre, I am currently involved in, among other things: organizing the work of the association; purchasing valuable natural wetlands to provide them with permanent passive protection (among others in the Rospuda Valley); a project directly rewetting drained peatlands; cooperation with the ZAKOLE group for the effective protection of the Wawerski Bend – a unique complex of wetland habitats in Warsaw; organisation of active nature conservation actions (especially xerothermic grasslands in Mielnik through sheep grazing); organisation of volunteer work; contact with donors of the Wetlands Conservation Centre; activities related to education on wetlands.

m.galus[at]bagna.pl

 

dr Urszula Biereżnoj-Bazille – Peatland Rewetting Specialist

I grew up in the Biebrza marshes and the Wigry peatland lakes. This is probably where my passion and love for wetlands comes from. I graduated from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (major: environmental biology). I defended my doctoral dissertation at the University of Białystok. The subject of my research was the wetland plant Swertia perennis (biology, ecology and phylogeography). For almost sixteen years I have been involved in nature conservation, mainly in the Biebrza National Park (legal aspects of nature conservation). At the Wetlands Conservation Centre, I am responsible for assessing the possibilities of rehydrating peatlands, and in the near future, also for implementing such projects. If you know of drained peatlands, whose owners no longer have farm animals and mow them only for subsidies, let me know. Maybe they will be interested in participating in our project and in the additional payments they can receive in connection with this participation.

u.biereznoj[at]bagna.pl

 

 

 

dr Michał Tyszkowski – Peatland Rewetting Specialist

I am a Doctor of Philosophy in natural sciences, a graduate of botany at the University of Wrocław. My PhD thesis was devoted to lake-origin fens in the Augustów Forest, which have remained my love to this day. I worked at the Botanical Garden of Medicinal Plants of the Medical Academy in Wrocław, and currently for years I have been running my own company with an IT and linguistic profile. As a part of this activity, I have developed, among other things, my proprietary software for creating and tabulating phytosociological releves, and I have also translated the full text of the Ramsar Convention into Polish. I have also been involved in voluntary work organised by CMok for years, both in wetlands and grasslands. My greatest passion are calcareous fens, which were the subject of most of my scientific work, and plants from the orchid family.

m.tyszkowski[at]bagna.pl

 

  

Aleksandra Leszczyńska – Agriculture Specialist

In 2021, by complete accident, I came across Polesie Lubelskie, whose marshy ecosystems initially seemed extremely exotic to me. The longer I explored the area, the more I liked it. I stayed longer and right there, in the Polesie peatlands, I met the team from the Wetlands Conservation Centre.

I graduated from the Inter-Faculty Studies in Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the Jagiellonian University. For years, I have been connected with the non-governmental sector, often cooperating with business. I became interested in agriculture in Guatemala, where I helped small producers of high-quality coffee gain access to foreign markets. I also worked in a certification body specializing in systems for managing forest and agricultural land. I developed a regenerative agriculture project in Poland implemented on over 100 farms on approx. 11 thousand hectares and coordinated the monitoring, reporting and verification of the results of this project in three European countries.

At the Wetlands Conservation Centre I deal with topics related to agriculture, especially wetland agriculture, i.e. paludiculture.

a.leszczynska[at]bagna.pl

 

Marlena Tokarska – Financial Coordinator

 

Magdalena Siemaszko – Project Coordinator of Pamiętajmy o Mokradłach! (Let’s Remember about Wetlands!)

I am a social activist and researcher, biologist and anthropologist, combining the perspectives of natural, social and philosophical sciences. I am primarily interested in relationships in communities and ecosystems, mutual dependencies – care and power between people, plants, animals, bodies and communities. In my practice, I deal with, among others, ecological conflicts and social change, using interdisciplinary tools, e.g. action research and artistic research. I currently live in Podlasie, on a beautiful meadow in the Białowieża Forest, where I conduct ethnographic research on, among others, the conflict over logging, I co-create the local association Dom Przyrody i Kultury, the ecofeminist collective Wypuszcze and I am currently active in Grupa Granica. I participate in supporting and observing local networks of cooperation, especially women and ecological and pro-animal activists, local resistance activities, e.g. protests against industrial investments in the region, and I also co-create artistic projects related to local heritage (Kultura Kresu Foundation) and social choreography. I met the Wetlands Conservation Centre many years ago, while still studying at the Faculty of Biology, when I got involved in its field activities, and for a year I have been working here as a coordinator of the nationwide project Pamiętajmy o Mokradłach (Let’s Remember about Wetlands). Swamps, rivers and meadows have always attracted me, and the relationship with the not-only-human world is very important in my life. I care about searching for new/old forms of mutual care, co-existence and abrasion that enable common and non-destructive inhabitation of worlds.

magdalenas[at]bagna.pl

 

 

dr inż. Ilona Biedroń – Project Coordinator of WaterLANDS

Unlike my colleagues at the Wetlands Conservation Centre, I am an environmental engineer specialising in water resources management with a diploma from the Kraków University of Technology and a PhD from the Institute of Technology and Life Sciences in Falenty. I have qualifications to prepare hydrological documentation issued in 2007.

I am a co-author of a number of expert opinions, studies and planning works in the field of water management carried out since 2003. I have coordinated and managed many projects carried out for the benefit of the water administration in Poland, including the project entitled "Development of the National Program for the renaturation of surface waters" indicating the need and scope of taking actions in the field of improving hydromorphology for Polish rivers, lakes and coastal waters.

In addition to expert knowledge, I have the skills to plan and manage projects and build and coordinate the work of project teams. I am a certified Project Manager – PRINCE2® Practitioner.

At the Centre, I have been entrusted with the role of coordinating the WaterLANDS project, in which we are one of 32 co-participating organisations. In parallel, I am a representative of the Board of the Hektary dla Natury Foundation, which we have focused on in the project Zdrowa Rzeka.

i.biedron[at]bagna.pl

 

 

Christina Selz – Erasmus Internship Trainee

Through funding from the Erasmus program, I have the pleasure of working for CMok from March to September of 2025. This internship is in partial fulfillment of my Bachelor’s degree at the University of Greifswald, a city which is also known for its many wetland conservation associations. During my studies I already gained some experience conducting various practical nature conservation measures and, like many other ecology students in Greifswald, I quickly became invested in peatlands and their connection to climate change. For several years I was involved in the BUNDjugend, a German non-profit organization that supports volunteer work for environmental protection. I believe that volunteer work is very valuable and that non-profit organizations are essential for achieving progress in climate and nature protection. Since I have also been interested in the Polish language for a long time and wanted to gain more professional experience, I am happy to be able to learn as much as I can and to support CMok to the best of my ability.

c.selz[at]bagna.pl

 

 

 

Piotr Panek – Volunteer

I have been at the Wetlands Conservation Centre from the very beginning, persuaded by Paweł Pawlikowski. After the official registration of the association, for the first two terms, I headed its review board. However, even then my activity focused more on desk work and promotion than in the field. In connection with this, at some point I started supporting the administrators of the bagna.pl website, and at the beginning of 2011 I set up a fanpage for it on Facebook. I am a hydrobiologist by education. I received my MA in environmental biology from the University of Warsaw. I currently work at the Chief Inspectorate for Environmental Protection, supervising the monitoring of biological elements used to assess the ecological status of waters. In my free time, I am involved in, among other things, popularizing science, especially biology and ecology, but other areas are also familiar to me.

piotr-panek[at]wp.pl

 

 

Piotr Chibowski – Volunteer

I am a PhD student and laboratory technician at the Faculty of Biology at the University of Warsaw. I study the functioning of ecosystems using so-called biochemical markers. I conducted research in wetland areas, but I learned (and still learn) about the functioning of wetlands, their threats and role in the environment mainly from colleagues from the Wetlands Conservation Centre

I proudly say that I am a person of the Wetlands Conservation Centre in Polesie Lubelskie, to which I am connected by family. My activities focus on protecting the local peat bogs from threats related to the development of mining activities in the Lublin Coal Basin.

p.chibowski2[at]uw.edu.pl

 

 

Michał Kryciński – Volunteer

I have always been drawn to marshes. I feel peace in dense reeds, and joy in vast marshes. The Wetlands Conservation Centre is one of the best things that happened to me during my studies. Since then, I have been circling the Association's orbit, both near and far. I am most keen to work in the field – clearing peat bogs of shrubs or inventorying newts and beavers. Once a year, I organise a crane count in the Masovian Landscape Park.

I am also a nature educator, biology teacher, tour guide, birdwatcher, cyclist, ultimate frisbee player and choir singer.

mee_how[at]o2.pl

 

Adam Kapler – Volunteer

Born in 1983. Independent botanist, historian of science and urban meadow keeper. I graduated from the University of Warsaw. Towards the end of my studies I fell in love with the wetlands of eastern Poland, especially the Suwałki Region and Polesie Lubelskie. I am a fulfilled person because I combine earning money with my passions. I work at Woda Polskie. I monitor tasks related to the development of Project Information Cards (KIP) and Environmental Impact Assessment Reports (ROOŚ). I verify them from an environmental perspective. I participate in the creation of notes, information and analyses used by the Department Management to make decisions. I also deal with issuing opinions on draft laws and translating draft directives and strategies. I am trying to marry fire with water, i.e. provide us with new sources of clean electricity, while at the same time saving populations of migratory fish. I also promote urban flower meadows and rain gardens and retention basins as elements of small water retention. I am not happy about the fate of the Anasazi Indians or the inhabitants of Easter Island, so I want sustainable development to become a fact.

 

 

Kasia Topolska – Volunteer

I am a graduate of the Faculty of Biology at the University of Warsaw. Growing up right next to the Kampinos National Park in close contact with nature resulted in the development of my interests in nature. A significant influence was also the meeting of a teacher with passion and an interesting way of conveying knowledge about the world of plants and animals. I first had the opportunity to familiarize myself with the activities of the Wetlands Conservation Centre in 2012, when I took part in an active protection campaign for one of the peat bogs in the Mazovian Voivodeship. Someone told me then that I would either love it or hate it. I loved it, and I stayed. A subject that is particularly close to my heart is lichenology, and especially the ecology and occurrence of selected macrolichens. I am also interested in broadly understood botany and phytosociology, and I am still trying to develop in this direction, working, among others, on inventories and environmental monitoring in various parts of Poland. On the other hand, the knowledge that I would still like to expand is the legal aspects of nature protection, regulating the possibility of taking specific actions for rare species and natural habitats.

 

 

Łukasz Krajewski – Volunteer

A one-person cabaret section of the Silesian-Cracow Upland and a dying relic of the once vibrant faction of de Falenty meliorators. Interests include grasslands, marshes, and waters (flora and fauna, also those caught with a rod). I have a particular fixation on stoneworts, plagues, mosses, and locusts (the insect net mainly gathers dust, however). Carbonate rocks and fossils are not exempt from my interest (continuation of the Zagłębie tradition of the hammer and pick). In the Wetlands Conservation Centre, once more often in active protection actions, the mood is currently dominated by holiday laziness on the water (obesity, post-rock lumbago, blaséness, midlife crisis..?), which is due to the electric engine of the CMok-ship "Dyzia" under captain Janek.

lukkrajewski[at]wp.pl

 

 

Magda Jędrzejewska – Volunteer

I started supporting the Wetlands Conservation Centre in 2022, with subtitles for this year's Wetland Day films. I have no wetland education or experience. I graduated from Applied Linguistics at the University of Warsaw (a long time ago). Then, for many years, I managed internal audit units in various large companies. But I have had a long-standing affection for wetlands, so sooner or later I had to come to the Centre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review Board

 

Paulina Dzierża – Leader of the Review Board

I am a botanist, a graduate of biology and environmental protection at the University of Warsaw. Towards the end of my studies, I joined the Wetlands Conservation Centre at the beginning of its activity and for several years I was involved in the implementation of active nature protection projects, scientific activities, as well as nature interventions and office work. Since 2008, I have been performing a supporting and auxiliary role in the Association, undertaking minor tasks as a volunteer. The main area of ​​my activity for a long time was meadow ecosystems (monitoring meadows covered by agri-environmental payments as part of nature packages), for a year I also ran the secretariat of the Ramsar Convention at the General Directorate for Environmental Protection. My passion is education and communication - I consider them the only effective key to stopping the degradation of the natural environment.

 

   

dr Monika Szewczyk – Member of the Review Board

I am a graduate of the Faculty of Biology at the University of Warsaw and one of the founding members of the Chrońmy Mokradła Association, currently the Wetlands Conservation Centre. For over ten years, wetland protection has been the content of my professional work. I feel particularly strongly connected to the upper Narew Valley. I have had the opportunity to participate twice in the development of a protection plan for the terrestrial ecosystems of the Narew National Park, and the history of changes in the vegetation of the marshy section of the Narew Valley became the subject of my doctoral thesis. I currently work at the UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre, where I deal with issues related to the protection of biodiversity, ecosystem services and green infrastructure. In my free time, which is becoming increasingly scarce, I try to participate in various projects related to the protection of grassland, meadow and wetland ecosystems and find time for nature photography.

 

   

prof. Mariusz Lamentowicz – Member of the Review Board

I am intrigued by the impact of climate and humans on peat bogs. My interests focus on the ecology and paleoecology of wetlands, and in particular on a fantastic, little-known group of organisms – shelled amoebae. At the same time, I am interested in monitoring and experimenting with the goal of better understanding current and predicting future changes in peat bog ecosystems. I have been observing birds for 28 years, and I have completed a bird ringing course. In the past, I have cooperated with the Eagle Protection Committee, the Ornithological Station of the Museum and Institute of Zoology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Gdańsk, and currently with OTOP as part of the Common Breeding Bird Monitoring (MPPL). I derive great satisfaction from photographing nature – mainly wetlands. I am the head of the Climate Change Ecology Workshop at the Faculty of Geographical and Geological Sciences at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

  

  

 

All members of the administration as well as the board of review are fulfilling their duties as volunteers – they do not receive any financial compensation for their work.