National Parks

Contrast today’s experiences of a Danish National Park with America’s National Parks in general, or specifically with one that you have visited.

As a student in Montana, I am quite familiar with the national parks of the United States – specifically Yellowstone. This vast expanse of land in Montana and Wyoming encompasses mountains, roaring rivers and waterfalls, dense forests, hot springs and geysers, and wildlife like grizzly bears, bison, elk and wolves. Yellowstone has been preserved as pristine, old-growth wilderness with tight restrictions on activities and use. The main activity in the park today is tourism – Yellowstone is a wildly popular attraction in the summer months, drawing crowds from across the globe. The park is a great source of national pride, and stands as a symbol of the vast wilderness that once dominated our continent.

a picture I took at yellowstone national park
june 8, 2014

Today we visited Kongernes Nordsjælland National Park, one of four total Danish national parks, and the only one on the same island as Copenhagen (Sjælland / Zealland). The character of this place is totally different from the national parks I am used to. None of the forests in Denmark are virgin wilderness, almost every last hectare having been thinned or burned or drained or landscaped at some point in history. This region was drained of most of its marshes for farming and military purposes, something the Nature Agency is slowly working to reverse. The character of the forest today is quite varied, some parts appearing more wild and others quite thin and young. The woods are managed carefully and closely, with trees constantly being planted and cut to maintain a balance. The biggest difference I noticed in the woods was the lack of dead plant material and of undergrowth – something our tour guide explained as being due to the historic harvesting of wood and the mass planting of trees which then mature all at once.

our guide at Kongernes Nordsjælland

I was also struck by the diverse uses and stakeholders involved in national forest land. There are many privately owned chunks that are technically part of the national forest, that go about their business as usual. Farming especially was interesting to me, as there are no restrictions in place about fertilizers or organic practices. Larger, more traditional farms, however, are often skeptical of the National Parks system and do not want to be a part of that designation for fear of future sanctions. 

This national park is an amazing indicator of the Danish relationship between man and landscape. The cycles of tree growth are long enough that Danes have not yet been able to recreate a "wild" wooded area. The country is too small to set aside enormous portions of wilderness purely for tourism. But just like yellowstone, Kongernes Nordsjælland captures the essence of its country's landscape and human-environment relationship.