The national park and neighbouring areas form the West Polesie biosphere reserve, designated by UNESCO in 2002.

After the invasion of Poland, Nazi Germany planned to set up a "Jewish reservation" in the area of today's Polesie National Park known for its swampy nature.

[2][3] Adolf Eichmann was assigned the task of removing all Jews from Germany, Austria, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to this reservation.

[6] The "Nisko Plan" initially intended to remove 80,000 Jews from the so-called Greater German Reich,[7] was scrapped in April 1940.

[12] Notably, in less than two years the whole district would lend itself to the industrialized murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews during Operation Reinhard.

The ecosystems of swamps and peat-bogs, which dominate the park's landscape, are considered very delicate and can easily be influenced by several outside factors.

Some unfortunate changes were made by draining swamps, which took place mainly during World War II, when the area became the focus of the Nazi German "Lublin und Nisko Plan".