According to the internationally recognized categories of the IUCN , a national park is a category II protected area, which is mainly set up to protect large-scale natural and semi-natural areas and large-scale ecological processes ( process protection ). According to Section 24 (2) of the Federal Nature Conservation Act (BNatSchG), these protected areas are intended to ensure the ecological integrity of one or more ecosystems, while at the same time promoting nature experience, research, education and recreational opportunities.
The national park is one of the options for area-related nature conservation in Germany . In § 24 it is stipulated that national parks (also called national parks ) should serve the large-scale protection of areas of special character. For the most part, these areas must meet the requirements of a nature reserve and, for the most part, be in a state that has little or no human influence or at least be suitable for it.
In principle, all actions, interventions and projects that run counter to the protective purpose are prohibited in national parks. For exceptions to this regulation, the intervention compensation regulation of the Federal Nature Conservation Act applies . National parks are to be taken into account in the land-use planning and must be represented and taken into account in development plans . One speaks here of a takeover for information. These are binding stipulations that cannot be overcome due to an overriding general good in the balance .
The objective of German national parks is defined in paragraph 2 of § 24 BNatSchG . The focus is on the undisturbed flow of natural processes. Secondary goals are scientific environmental observation and natural history education as well as nature experience for the population.
The area of the 16 national parks in Germany is 1,047,859 hectares (as of April 2020). Without the marine areas of the North Sea and Baltic Sea, however, there are only 205,655 ha, which corresponds to only 0.60% of the terrestrial area of Germany. In contrast, there were 8,833 nature reserves in Germany at the end of 2017 with a total area of 2,627,510 hectares (including the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and the 12 nautical mile zone in the North and Baltic Seas); this corresponds to 6.3% of the area of Germany.
Other projects in Germany largely fail due to economic interests or resistance from parts of the local population.
The Siebengebirge in the Rhein-Sieg district on the right bank of the Rhine near Bonn was to be designated as a national park on an area of 4,500 hectares according to the plans of the NRW state government. The project failed due to the resistance of the population of Bad Honnef ( referendum ).
In North Rhine-Westphalia there were plans for a Senne-Egge National Park . However, a large part of the designated protected area is still used as a military training area. The government of the SPD and the Greens elected in 2012, as well as several nature conservation associations, wanted to set up a national park. After the end of military use, it should encompass the Senne area. It was also agreed in the coalition agreement to support the regional initiative of the Lippe district to designate a national park in the Teutoburg Forest and in the Egge Mountains. After a counter-campaign by landowners, hunting tenants , associations and parts of the population, the Lippe district administrator Friedel Heuwinkel and the arbitrator Günter Kozlowski appointed by the Lippe district council declared on October 25, 2012 that no national park scenery in the Teutoburg Forest and Eggegebirge could be proposed. The decision by Heuwinkel and Kozlowski is seen by many as the end of national park planning in the Teutoburg Forest and Egge Mountains.
In Bavaria there is an initiative to declare the Steigerwald , a low mountain range in Lower , Middle and Upper Franconia , a national park. The implementation of the project has so far failed due to economic interests. Most recently, when discussing a third national park in Bavaria, the focus has shifted to the Franconian Forest , the Rhön and the Spessart .
Also in Bavaria, according to plans by nature conservationists, the Ammer Mountains ( Ammergau Alps ) are to be permanently preserved as a national park. The project area in the Bavarian state property is over 23,000 hectares. The success of the effort is uncertain; some residents fear restrictions on use and economic losses on adjacent non-state forest areas.
Most of the existing national parks only partially meet the criterion of undisturbed and large-scale natural development - the prerequisites for this are to be created in the coming decades through long-term control measures. The National Park Ordinance of the former Elbtalaue National Park was declared null and void by the Federal Administrative Court in September 1999 on the grounds that the area was primarily to be viewed as a cultural landscape and therefore did not meet the basic requirements for a national park.
Conservation and Tourism
Since national parks are intended to enable wild animals and plants to live without human disturbance on the one hand, but also to enable people to experience nature on the other, human activities in different parts of German national parks are subject to different restrictions.
↑ | mainpost.de | Main post . In: mainpost.de . ( mainpost.de [accessed on October 12, 2016]).
↑ Bayerischer Rundfunk: Third National Park in Bavaria ?: Lower Franconian nature conservationists for the Spessart | BR.de . October 6, 2016 ( br.de [accessed September 5, 2019]).
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