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- | About the County Administrative Board of Västernorrland
- | Environment and nature conservation
Protected areas in the county of Västernorrland
Only a small part of the nature in Västernorrland is in some way protected.
One form of protection in Sweden is provided by national parks. These are often large continuous areas offering opportunities of enjoying nature and recreation of great value. There is one national park in the county, called Skuleskogen.
Nature reserves are the most common form of nature protection in Sweden. These are set aside to protect various types of natural habitat that provide opportunities of experiencing nature and recreation of great value. As a consequence of the Environmental Code the possibility now exists of creating cultural reserves.
Other forms of protection include:
- natural monuments, that is, small individual objects of interest such as an old broad pine typical of previous generations of trees or geological formations.
- animal and plant life protection areas, reserved to protect animals and plants that are sensitive to disturbance and therefore merit protection. There are 19 bird protection areas in the county.
-biotope protection, which refers to small areas with high biological values in farming and forestry lands. The National Board of Forestry is the authority that makes decisions on biotope protection on forest land and the county Administrative board does so with regard to other land. The National Board of Forestry can also make voluntary nature conservation agreements with landowners to protect small areas with high nature values.
International protection through conventions and laws.
Certain areas have been listed by the government as Natura 2000 areas and these are entitled to greater protection according to EU habitat and /or bird directives.
Another form of protection is what is known as the Ramsar areas which consist of the most valuable wetlands in the world, included in the international CW (Convention on wetlands) list. We have two Ramsar areas in the county, Sulsjön/ Övre Sulån in the municipalityofSundsvall and Mossaträsk-Stormyran in the municipality of Örnsköldsvik.
Finally, the county contains a world heritage area appointed by the Unesco in the year 2000 called Höga Kusten (the High Coast) which comprises the coastal cliffs of Ångermanland from the promontory of Skags Udde to the estuary of the Ångermanälven river.
Common to all protected areas is that they have been set aside to preserve biological diversity, various types of geological formations, historic culture sites and features valuable for outdoor sports activity. Examples of these types of nature are virgin forests, meadows, areas with islands and archipelago, historical culture sites, mires, island rookeries, places rich in vegetation, caves, steep high sandy riverbanks etc. But this protection is not only for the sake of nature itself, it is also intended to permit you to experience and study interesting aspects of nature.
