and Totsingdalen (1930); Holland established the “Hogte Veluwe” national park in 1935: and, three years later, Finland founded national parks at Pallus-Ounar and Pyhatunturi--the same year Greece established parks at Parnassus Olympus.
The years after World War II constituted the third phase of park development, noted for the establishment of the majority of Western Europe's parks and reserves. Most of the European states expanded their park lands during this period, resulting in a total by 1970 of 269 nature reserves and national parks with an aggregate area of 30,00 ,783 acres, or about 2.1 percent of the area of Western and Eastern Europe. However, several Western European countries exceed the percentage, including the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) (11.5%), France (10%), Great Britain (9.7%), and Norway (4.4%). These percentages are more significant when compared with the amount of land area in the United States devoted to public parks, amounted to 29,515,265 acres in 1972.
In addition, the Western European countries have endeavored to form inter european parks, beginning with a German-Luxembourg reserve (1965), followed by a German-Belgian reserve (1971). By 1970 the concept of tran forntier Dutch park and preserves was a top priority and stimulated proposals for a German-Dutch park, along with discussions between Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria about similar parks. The French and Italians contemplated a link between the Vanoise and Grand Paradiso parks, and proposed a similar connection between Finland’s Lemmenjoki park and adjacent Swedish lands.
With Europeans enjoying a high standard of living, including one in three persons owning an automobile in 1980, demand for recreational space continues to put pressure on landscape that had traditional functioned as agricultural lands and space. Urbanites have the opportunity to travel into the countryside and as a result have had a major impact on areas. For instance ,Britain emphasizes public access to rural landscapes, where sightseers may view pastoral and agricultural lands. In West Germany, the approach is somewhat the reverse: more than 1,100 nature reserves attest to the government's emphasis on nature conservation. Added to these divergent approaches to rural recreation is the now ambiguous term national park, which in contemporary Europe is a loose designation for lands ranging from public wilderness, often closed to intensive public use, to private farmland, which is actively promoted for rural recreation uses.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) has attempted to establish a rational basis for designating lands as national parks. By 1974 IUCN standards, a landscape must have specific qualities to qualify as a national park. These include a large area consisting of one or more ecosystems relatively unaffected by human activity; scientific, educational, or visual interest; and the commitment of respective national governments to protect the resources of the national park and to restrict public use of the land to recreational, educational, cultural, or spiritual purposes. To avoid confusing national park land with other park, the IUCN has removed from consideration any land that is a restricted scientific reserve; a private or local public natural reserve; a plant or animal game reserve; or a recreational landscape devoted to tourism that favor recreation over the protection of ecosystems. Based on these standard, the number of national parks varies from country to country, With Sweden having the highest percentage of land devoted to national park and Denmark the smallest
In addition to national park the IUCN has promoted the identification and protection of wetlands and other significant habitats. Beginning in 1965, IUCN has maintained a list of sites that require special protection as wetlands, marshes, or bogs – the so-called MAR list, which by 1975 had named over 163 locations in eighteen countries. A boost to the program occurred in 1971 with the Ramsar, Iran, convention, which sought to draw attention to the fragility of these sites in the face of worldwide rapid urbanization and increased rural recreational activity. The result of all these national and international measures to form reserves, parks, and recreational areas has been a complex arrangement of specially designated lands set aside for conservation and recreation. In West Germany, armed with its 1976 Federal Nature Conservation Law, the government continues to favor the preservation of natural habitats, and seeks to protect rare plants and animals, rather than picturesque landscapes. Many of the sites are 125 acres or less in size, compounding the difficulty of protecting sensitive landscapes from pollution and urbanization. In France, rural landscape conservation received a boost from the 1967 proclamation, which created the parcs naturels regionaux. The purpose of these parks is to furnish the nation with lands that enhance and preserve the natural, cultural, and rural aspect of the countryside. There are now twenty regional parks ranging in size from 508,820 acres in southwest France to a small 25,441-acre site near the Belgian border. Of all the Western European countries, Britain appears to have created the most elaborate system of reserves and parkland Beginning with the National Nature Reserves initiative in the 1940s, the British government, by 1982, had created 219 reserves. in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Many of these lands are owned or leased by the Nature Conservancy, thereby providing some safeguards against indiscriminate land use.
In 1990 the population of Western Europe was projected to reach 358 million people, with a majority of the population concentrated in urban areas. In the industrial sectors of Great Britain, The Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium, the population density per square mile exceeds 650, much higher than Sweden, for example, with a density of 55 persons per square mile. These numbers tell only part of the story, since for the past several thousand years Western Europe has been part of a larger arena of human activity centering on the Mediterranean Thus we must include all the nations of the region, including the North African and eastern Mediterranean states, in any discussion of environmental issues affecting landscape quality. For example, Egypt presently has a population of 49 million, mostly concentrated along the Nile River channel. The population density along most of the river exceeds 1,100 persons per square mile, with areas around Cairo and Aswan exceeding 2,800 persons per square mile. These figures, added to the European estimate, raise the total population of the region to roughly 420 million, many of whom are involved in modern industrial and agricultural activities
However, population projections are only a part of the picture of equal significance change in lifestyles, fueled by economic prosperity throughout most of the region. The average European today has attained a standard of living such that his or her material and leisure demands are exacting an increased toll on the landscape. Even in areas, such as Egypt, where a good portion of the population remains involved in agricultural activities, changes in agricultural. techniques have stimulated a gradual rise in standard of living, creating increased demands for energy, natural resources, housing, and recreation space.
The Egyptian example is pertinent at this point. For nearly seven thousand years the Egyptians have relied on the Nile River to provide moisture and nutrients for their agricultural activities. Until recently, water from the White and Blue Niles has conveyed nutrients and silt into the lower Nile River valley during the autumn season. At times these floods were disastrous, overfilling agricultural lands and inundating settlements; in other instances insuffcient rainfall in the Ethiopian highlands produced scant runoff. To overcome these problems, the Egyptian government embarked on a plan to control the flooding by constructing the Aswan High Dam. The project, begun in 1971 with Soviet assistance, produced high dam and large reservoir, Lake Nasser. The projected benefits of project seemed to support the building of the dam: the builders promised it would increase arable land in Egypt from 7 million to 9 million acres and enable the country to maintain high yields of rice and wheat. In addition, the project produced an annual hydroelectric output of 10,000 million kilowatts.
Though the Aswan High Dam project has helped to control flooding and to produce needed electrical energy, the project like so many efforts undertaken in the region to tap the resources of the landscape, has also produced several negative environmental consequences. The most significant is the loss of sediments that now accrue behind the dam, rapidly building up due to the high evaporation rate at Lake Nasser. Farmers now must rely on artificially produced fertilizers for their fields. Ironically, a portion of the electrical output at the High Dam must be used to produce these fertilizers. Even with these substitutes, farmers now contend with increased rates of salination and the spread of schistosomiasis. In addition the projected increase in arable land was not realized; building of the dam has actually resulted in a net loss of 106 million square yards of land below the dam. Further north along the Nile Delta, there is a problem with shoreline erosion resulting from the lack of sediment reaching the sea. Finally the once fecund sardine fishing industry has declined due to insufficient nutrients reaching the Mediterranean.
Along the northern rim of the Mediterranean, pressures to utilize undeveloped landscapes for new industrial, residential, and recreational sites have produced similar alterations in the environment.