Summit County Citizens Voice

A pair of horses graze near the entrance of Kalkalpen National Park in Austria. This park includes the largest protected forest area in Austria. Scientists here are studying issues that will sound familiar to Colorado residents. Among other things, researchers are examining the growing risk of pine beetle infestation as the global climate warms. Kalkalpen National Park is also home to a solitary lynx that wandered in from a neighboring country several years ago. The cat’s presence has triggered a debate about whether to try and re-introduce the predators in the Austrian mountains. Researchers are also looking at brown trout populations and monitoring springs in surrounding communities to gage water quality and impacts to runoff as glaciers retreat under the stress of global warming. PHOTO BY BOB BERWYN. Click on the image to visit the park online.

The national park ideal is one of America’s most successful exports and has been adopted around the globe

By Bob Berwyn

National Parks were born in 1872 with the creation of Yellowstone. Holding land in public ownership for conservation, science and recreation is a manifestation of American populist values and contrasts strongly with with the old European feudal model, where the richest habitat and hunting grounds were set aside as private reserves for royalty, and trespassing by commoners was punishable by fines and imprisonment.

For the first time, nature was granted the right to remain intact for its own sake and “for the edification, joy and education of future generations.”

It was a conscious decision to renounce use in favor of nature and preservation. It took a few decades, but the idea eventually caught on in Europe.

The first national parks on that side of the Atlantic were established in Sweden in 1909. In the last 100 years, hundreds more have been created, from low-lying coastal dunes in Holland to karst uplifts in Ireland and high mountain wilderness in the Alps of Austria and France.

The national park ideal has found expression in nearly every corner of the world, and travelers planning a vacation abroad shouldn’t overlook the the option of visiting national parks to see the best of what other countries have to offer. Please click on the read more tab to see photos from national parks around the world.

“There is some interesting research about the trans-national aspect of national parks,” said Jon Putnam, who works for the National Park Service in Washington, D.C. “In a nutshell, we claim we were the first to come up with a true national park idea,” Putnam said. “Part of it was that, the U.S. had a cultural inferiority complex. We didn’t have any cathedrals, so we decided to create our own version with natural areas,” Putnam said.

The park concept evolved in a slightly different direction in each country. The Scandinavian model follows the U.S. ideal most closely. In Switzerland, national parks are often set aside for scientific research. In Great Britain, the areas called national parks are similar to cultural heritage areas in the U.S. and the natural resources don’t enjoy the same strict standard of protection. In Austria, national parks often encompass entire towns that existed long before the parks were created. One of the management goals is to preserve traditional culture along with the natural resources.

By now, nearly every country in the world has set aside important natural and cultural areas in national parks to protect for future generations.

Click here for a portal to national parks and preserves in Europe.

Lago Roca is located in Tierra del Fuego National Park, at the tip of South America. A popular hiking trail leads along the eastern shore of the lake to the border between Argentina and Chile. The glacial melt water filling the lake doesn’t have far to go before it reaches the sea in the Beagle Channel, near Ushuaia. In contrast to American National Parks, much of the Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego, is permanently closed to visitors, to be left undisturbed in its natural state for research purposes. PHOTO BY BOB BERWYN. Click on the image for more information.

The massive limestone Dachstein Mountain is located near Gesäuse National Park in Austria. The soft rock is marked by deep river-carved gorges, waterfalls and caves. Gesäuse National Park is the newest of Austria’s six national parks. It was given the designation in 2002. The Dachstein is part of the northern limestone Alps constructed from the remains of life forms in the primeval sea, with a high proportion of reef material and chalky mud. Most of the rocks were formed about 150 to 230 million years ago, deposited in the lagoons and behind the coral reefs of the Upper Triassic era. PHOTO BY BOB BERWYN. Click on the image to visit the park's web site.

A Dutch couple cycles through Texel Dunes National Park in Holland. The low-lying barrier island was explored by Vikings and now helps protect a unique tidal-flat ecosystem called the Waddenzee. The dunes and the Waddenzee were added to the list of World Heritage sites last year. PHOTO BY BOB BERWYN. Click on the image to learn more.

A pair of fawns graze in a protected subalpine grasslands in a National Park biosphere reserve along the Danube near Vienna, Austria. PHOTO BY BOB BERWYN. Click on the image to learn more.

Filed under: national parks, public lands, Travel Tagged: | Argentina, Austrian national parks, conservation, history of national parks, Holland, national parks, Travel