Original Via Baltica route would have heavily impacted on important sites for biodiversity including the Biebrza marshes, and the Knyszyn and Augustow forests

This article is more than 10 years old

This article is more than 10 years old

Some of Europe's most important wildlife sites appear to have been saved after an international campaign succeeded in preventing a motorway from being built through an area of ancient forest and marshland.

Dozens of protected species including the lynx, wolf, beaver, aquatic warbler and greater spotted eagle are expected to benefit from the Polish government's U-turn. After years of pressure from environmentalists, it has decided to re-route part of a proposed international road corridor linking Helsinki in Finland and Prague in the Czech Republic via Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The original route would have heavily impacted on important sites for biodiversity including the Biebrza marshes, and the Knyszyn and Augustow primeval forests.

Campaigners against the scheme also hope the decision to adopt a more environmentally sensitive route for the Via Baltica road will deter other governments in the region from going ahead with a boom in infrastructure building that would threaten some of the most natural landscapes in Europe.

The RSPB called the decision "a major victory that represents a significant step towards the proper implementation of Polish and European environmental laws."

Adam Wajrak, a Polish environmental journalist and campaigner, said: "For Poland it's an important decision because it's the first time they are using [an independent] strategic assessment to decide where the roads should be; up to now it was just the decision of some politicians."

However opponents also warned that, despite the Polish council of ministers' announcement, some local authorities wanted to push ahead with the road under a new name, the Via Carpathia.

"With the new route for the Via Baltica corridor settled there is no need to continue with these large scale projects on the old route which will needlessly damage Natura 2000 [European Union] protected sites," said Malgorzata Gorska of OTOP, the Polish Society for the Protection of Birds.

Earlier this year the Polish government previously agreed to re-route a smaller part of the Polish section of the Via Baltica away from the Rospuda valley, believed to be Europe's last 'pristine' fen.

In a petition organised by Wajrak, 450 Polish scientists called that project "a destruction catastrophe unparalleled in the civilised world in the last decades".

The Polish national roads agency, which says new and improved links are vital to boost the economy, especially in remote areas, plans to announce a €17.7bn scheme this year, of which nearly half will be spent in 2010.