How Europe Drew Its Protected Lines, From a Volga Delta Reserve to a Slovak Karst

Astrakhan Nature Reserve was established in 1919 as a Russian zapovednik, a strict nature reserve, covering islands and wetlands where the Volga enters the northwest Caspian Sea. It covers 66,816 hectares and its reeds, cattails and willows give nesting habitat to waterfowl and wading birds. It later gained Ramsar status in 1975 and joined the UNESCO biosphere network in 1984.

Dartmoor has held national park status since 1951 and protects 954 square kilometers of southern Devon moorland. Here protection means public access: people retain extensive rights to walk the moor, even though parts of it have served as military firing ranges for more than 200 years. Its granite-capped hills, called tors, include the highest point, High Willhays at 621 meters.

Exmoor became a national park in 1954 under the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act. It covers 692.8 square kilometers, 71 percent in Somerset and 29 percent in Devon, and takes in the old royal hunting forest of Exmoor along with the Brendon Hills, the East Lyn Valley, the Vale of Porlock and 55 kilometers of Bristol Channel coast.

Northumberland National Park followed in 1956 and is the northernmost national park in England. Of the thirteen parks of England and Wales it is described as the most remote from large cities, the least populated and the least visited. Its land runs from the Cheviot Hills on the Scottish border to the central section of Hadrian's Wall.

Northern Vosges Regional Natural Park, designated in 1976, shows a French approach that protects woodland, wetland, farmland and historical sites together in the Bas-Rhin and Moselle. It started at 120,000 hectares and has grown to 130,500. Despite the name, it contains no part of the Vosges Mountains themselves.

Taimyrsky Nature Reserve returns to the strict Russian model. Established in 1979 on the Taimyr Peninsula, it protects the breeding grounds of the red-breasted goose and the summer calving grounds of wild reindeer, along with the biodiversity of Lake Taimyr. At 1,781,928 hectares it is vastly larger than any English park on this path.

The Broads gained protected status equivalent to a national park from the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Act 1988, and the Broads Authority was set up as a statutory body in 1989. Its 303 square kilometers hold seven rivers and 63 broads, shallow lakes that formed from flooded medieval peat excavations, joined by more than 200 kilometers of navigable waterway.

Rhön Biosphere Reserve was recognized by UNESCO on March 6, 1991, and covers 184,939 hectares across Hesse, Bavaria and Thuringia. Since November 2002 the three states have managed it together under an inter-state agreement that balances farming, nature protection, tourism and trade.

East Carpathian Biosphere Reserve crosses national borders. It began in 1992 as a Polish and Slovak designation, with Ukrainian territory added in 1998, and covers about 2,132 square kilometers. It brings the national parks and landscape parks of three countries into a single UNESCO area.

Slovak Karst National Park closes the path. The area was first protected as a landscape area in 1973 and declared a national park on 1 March 2002. It protects karst plains and plateaus in southern Slovakia, and part of it forms the World Heritage Site of the Caves of Aggtelek Karst and Slovak Karst, shared with Hungary.