Protected for More Than Wilderness, From an Oak Tree in 1956 to a Chalk Coast in 2014

Sweden, 1956. The smallest unit on the path: one ancient oak near Ekebyhov Castle, declared a protected natural monument in 1956. Standing alone in an open field, free of competition, it grew over roughly 500 years into what a 2008 measurement confirmed as the largest tree in Sweden by volume.

Tennessee, 1967. Here the protected thing is a life rather than a landscape: the farm and gristmill of World War I soldier Alvin C. York, with his house, store, church and the cemetery where he and his family lie. The Nashville Rotary Club bought him the farm in 1922, and his widow gave it to the state after his death in 1964.

Venezuela, 1974. A desert on a coast: sand dunes up to about 40 meters high, reshaped constantly by wind, set between the Mitare River delta and mangrove swamps and salt marshes. It is classified IUCN Category II and managed by INPARQUES, so a moving landscape counts as something to protect.

Oregon and Washington, 1986. Congress made this the second National Scenic Area in the United States, a canyon more than 80 miles long cut through the Cascade Range. The designation is run jointly by the Columbia River Gorge Commission and the Forest Service so that scenery and ecology are kept while the gorge stays a recreation destination, with more than 90 waterfalls including 620 foot Multnomah Falls.

Costa Rica, 1987. Protection started with schoolchildren: Swedish teacher Eha Kern's students raised an initial 18,000 dollars after learning of threats to the rainforest. The reserve is private, run by the Monteverde Conservation League, and by 1998 it was the largest private biological reserve in Central America.

Poland, 1990. Created at 48.13 square kilometers and later expanded to 97.62, this lowland of lakes and peat bogs lies where boreal and Atlantic plant regions meet. Its wetlands carry two further labels, UNESCO biosphere reserve and Ramsar site, which shows how one place can hold several layers of protection at once.

Switzerland, 2001. A UNESCO biosphere reserve of about 395 square kilometres, Switzerland's first under criteria that require both conservation and sustainable human development. It is laid out in three rings: a core of protected moorland, a buffer of alpine pasture, and a transition zone of sustainable activity in the inhabited valley floor.

The Netherlands, 2002. A national park built from the dune systems along the whole western side of the island of Texel, about 43 square kilometers in all. It shelters birds and marine mammals while also working as a recreation area with walking and cycling trails, and its governing bodies include the Dutch Ministry of Defence.

Slovakia, 2010. What is protected here is darkness. Established on December 3, 2010 over Poloniny National Park, its buffer zone and five municipalities, it covers about 485 square kilometers and was the first dark sky park in Slovakia, with views of nearly 2,000 stars and an on site observatory.

England, 2014. The last stop shows protection reaching a coast with a city beside it: a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve of about 295 square kilometers around Brighton and Hove, centred on chalk downland between the Adur and Ouse valleys, with high chalk cliffs in the east and urbanized plains in the west. It is now known as The Living Coast.