Refuge Naturel de la Marache à Lasne, Brabant Wallon Photograph by Pol Califice / RNOB Brabant Wallon   Western Europe: France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forests   154,100 square miles (399,100 square kilometers) -- about twice the size of South Dakota Critical/Endangered

· Sand and Trees
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Sand and Trees

Imagine standing on the southwestern coast of France in a region known as Les Landes. Along the shore, sand dunes continue as far as the eye can see. These dunes support unique plant communities and some are also found along coasts of the North Sea, where they form vital sea barriers, especially in the Netherlands. Beyond the dunes are extensive mixed forests.

Special Features

This wet, temperate coastal ecoregion supports heathlands and mixed forests of pine and beech. Atlantic beech forests are the major native vegetation here, while several mixed oak forests are also found in this region. The heathlands are well-adapted to wind and sea spray of the Atlantic Ocean as they grow close to the shoreline. Peat bogs are common in low-lying areas. The Loire River flows through this ecoregion, as does the Gironde, Seine, Rhine, Ems, Weser, and Elbe.

	The Eurasian curlew was common in this ecoregion in the 1800s. It has since declined to an estimated 300 individuals, and scientists aren’t sure where this rare bird breeds. They hope to find the breeding grounds and focus their conservation measures on this area, but it won’t be easy--the last Eurasian curlew nest was sighted in 1924!

Wild Side

This ecoregion supports a rich array of plants and a wide variety of animals, but many of the animals are listed as endangered, threatened, or vulnerable. Three amphibian species live almost nowhere else: the pool frog, marbled newt, and palmate newt. In Brittany, the reflex beetle is losing habitat as coastal forests are being fragmented by development. Other insects at risk include three species of red wood ant. Joining them on the list of at-risk animals: a freshwater mussel, four species of bats, the Baltic sturgeon, the European mink, the critically endangered Eurasian curlew, the lesser white-fronted goose, the aquatic warbler, and many other water and shore birds.

Cause for Concern

This ecoregion contains some of the most productive agricultural lands in Europe--lands that were converted from heathlands and forests. Further agricultural expansion, as well as urbanization and pollution, continue to threaten the remaining fragments of original vegetation.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.