Danish Greenspace: North Zealand

Yesterday’s visit was to Kongernes Nordsjylland, referred to in English as North Zealand. Over the past couple of years, there has been a consistent and inconclusive dialogue about converting this area into a national park. However, there has been resistance to this idea, particularly by the landowners and farmers of the area. Despite this struggle, North Zealand can in many ways be viewed as an example of a Danish National park, for both its typical Danish landscape and the efforts of the community and government to support its conservation.

When touring the area, I noticed two prominent differences between Denmark’s national parks and the national parks of the United States. The first is that the importance of regulation is stressed much less in Danish National parks. In these areas, people can hike, bike and enjoy other outdoor activities. This is not to say that protecting the environment is not prioritized, but that Danish culture and the views of the agencies protecting these natural areas do not stress restriction of recreational activities for the public, but rather view volunteer work and public appreciation of natural areas as the basis for conservation. This might be because in large part, many of Denmark’s national parks were not established until relatively recently, making their claim on an area significantly less strong. The second difference I noticed was that is in terms of the landscape, the national parks of Denmark are beautiful but not particularly drastic or striking. As I quickly learned, Denmark has few mountains or high points of elevation. Additionally, a good portion of the land is flat, which makes sense when considering that almost 60% of the land is devoted to agriculture. While there are few downsides to having land which can promote crop growth, this also means that Denmark’s flat landscape looks almost nothing like many of the national parks seen in the United States. If you compare North Zealand to Yosemite or Yellowstone for example, difference is obvious. While North Zealand is beautiful and natural, its landscape full of greenery and wildlife, it is lacking in what some may see as the wow factor. There are no high mountains, volcanoes or jagged cliffs. There is simply nature, in its purest form.