The delta remains an extraordinarily rich habitat for freshwater fauna and migrating birds, all of which are spectacularly showcased in the fabulous Natural History Museum (Prirodoslovni muzej) in the delta’s main town, Metković. Opened in 2016, the state-of-the-art museum retains many of the exhibits once displayed in the town’s former Ornithological Museum, a vast array of preserved birds that was said to be the third-largest such collection in Europe. The new museum injects a contemporary sense of style into the old-school stuffed-bird nature of the historic collection,with touch-screen information, sound effects(including push-button birdsong), and in one show-stopping touch, an airport-style arrivals board listing the incoming flights of migrating birds.   

Right up until the modern era the Neretva Delta was one vast swampland, a boggy expanse cut through by traversable waterways. The excavation of these waterways was extraordinarily physically demanding, a backbreaking job carried out by locals half-submerged in water – no wonder that rheumatic and lung complaints were endemic among the delta’s population. The sludge dredged up from the swamp bottom was piled up to create strips of cultivable land, although it wasn’t until the 20th century that the orchard agriculture for which the Delta is known really took off.  For centuries before that, most of the delta’s inhabitants practiced the hillside terrace farming common to the whole of the Dalmatian seaboard.