National Park in Zealand

Compared to national parks in America, the space that will hopefully someday be a unified national park in northern Zealand (one of the main islands of Denmark) called Kongernes is different in several ways. It is much smaller than most national parks in the U.S. and is scattered throughout several areas.  Compared to woodlands in the United States, the types of trees are somewhat different in the Gribskov forest in Kongernes, and this difference in type of trees makes forests in the U.S. look very different than the forest we saw today. The trees in the Gribskov forest and some of the other forests that we have seen have been planted with beech trees in a an attempt to recreate the composition of the forests prior to the massive deforestation. In these beech forests, the dense canopy of the trees as well as the ground cover of fallen leaves prevent most underbrush from growing, creating an open forest floor that can easily be walked through. It also makes the forest look more sparse. In the U.S., especially in the Northern parks such as the large national park surrounding the Adirondack Mountains, the forest is extremely dense with a variety of types of trees and species of underbrush, and in most places it is difficult to walk through unless on a trail. 

There is free camping at Kongernes, which is virtually nonexistent in parks in the US, especially highly desirable and well used parks. In most of these, camp sites range from 20-30 USD per night. It is also free to enter the park, which is also rare for national parks in the U.S., which usually require the purchase of a day, season or lifetime pass to that particular park. 

In Kongernes, users have the ability to use the forest for a variety of unrestricted recreations. In many of the parks I have been to in the states, biking and making fires is either restricted or forbidden. Below, there is an image of a cooking site at the park where people are allowed to make fires and are even provided with firewood. Mountain biking is also quite popular in the park, and bikers are allowed to access any of the trails in the park, which differs from the pedestrian only paths found in most American parks.

While the way people use the park seems to be less regulated than parks in the U.S., the ecological aspects of the park are highly managed. As mentioned before, the majority of the trees have been planted in an effort to restore the forests, and trees from the forests are often planted and then taken down for lumber. The nature ministry which manages the park also controls the biodiversity of the landscape, and has recreated many bogs throughout the forest to restore the prevalent wetlands that once dotted the forest in the 1800s. In the U.S., there is more focus on preserving and conserving virgin forest rather than trying to recreate what once was, with minimal human interference in the natural systems.