PARK FOR A WILDER EUROPE
None of Europe’s national parks are globally famous – but that could be about to change. Conservationists have revealed how they plan to create the first European national park with a sense of wilderness, to rival iconic ones such as Yellowstone in the US.
Rewilding expert Christoph Promberger is spearheading the initiative for Foundation Conservation Carpathia in Romania’s Fagaras Mountains in the southern Carpathians. “We have 330 national parks in Europe, but there’s not one that everyone knows like Yellowstone or Kruger,” he says.
“The Fagaras Mountains has the potential for a national park of 200,000ha, with alpine areas, forests and all the wildlife in it – a complete European ecosystem,” Promberger adds.
The foundation is backed by philanthropists such as Paul Lister, owner of the Alladale estate in the Scottish Highlands, and the Danish multi-billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen, who also owns several Scottish estates.
To date it has bought 21,000ha of land in the Fagaras Mountains, and secured 36,000ha of hunting concessions where wildlife is fully protected.
But in the long term, the foundation’s plan is to donate its landholdings to the Romanian government in return for the state protecting the entire area as a national park, a model pioneered in Chile (see ‘Chile’s park pledge’, right).
“We’ve got the largest areas of virgin forests in Europe with wolves, lynx and brown bears,” Promberger says. The Carpathian Mountains are regarded as one of Europe’s most important regions for wildlife and biodiversity.
Promberger believes the opportunities for attracting wildlife-watchers and others wanting a taste of the wild are huge. But a more stable political situation in Romania – it had two changes of government in 2017 – is needed, he says.