To know more about the National Parks in France, please visit this website:
http://www.parcsnationaux.org/visites/flash.asp?b_langue=en

• Vanoise National Park (Parc national de la Vanoise) (6 July 1963)

Located in the Alps (Savoie department), the national park was created after mobilization from the environmentalist movement against a touristic project. It was the first French national park.

The park is bordered by several famous French ski resorts (Les Trois Vallées, Tignes, Val-d’Isère, La Plagne). On the Italian side of the border, the park is continued by the Gran Paradiso National Park. Together, these two parks cover over 1250 km².

La Grande Casse -Vanoise mountain range

To know more about the Vanoise National Park, you can visit this website: http://www.vanoise.com/indexgb.htm

For beautiful pictures on the Vanoise: http://www.montagne-photos.org/galerie_vanoise.html

• Port-Cros National Park (Parc national de Port-Cros) (14 December 1963) – 7 km²

It is established on the Mediterranean island of Port-Cros, east of Toulon.

It was founded in 1963 after the island of Port-Cros was bought by the state. The state is the sole land owner on the island, which is a natural protected area.

• Pyrénées National Park (Parc national des Pyrénées) (23 March 1967) – 457 km²

is located within the departments of Hautes-Pyrénées and Pyrénées-Atlantiques.

Along the border of France and Spain is a scenic and mountainous landscape offering a variety of outdoor activities including hiking, skiing, mountain climbing and observing wildlife.

According to the Pyrenees National Park website, the park is a natural heritage without barriers or fences where animals are totally free. Devoted to preserving biodiversity and landscapes, studying wildlife and plant species, the park is home to 70 different species of animals.

To know more about the Pyrénées National Park, you can visit this website:
http://www.parc-pyrenees.com/

• Cévennes National Park (Parc national des Cévennes) (2 September 1970) – 913 km²

is located in southern France, in the mountainous area of Cévennes, more precisely in the departments of Lozère and Gard, and covers some parts of Ardèche and Aveyron. The Aven Armand cave is located in the park.

Famous caves in the Cévennes.

To know more about the Cévennes National Park: http://www.pnc.fr/English/tabid/112/language/en-US/Default.aspx

It is possible to approach marmots and even to touch them if you are patient! If you can carry a few carrots with you, it will help!

Mountain goats are more difficult to approach…once again, if you have something to offer to them, it will help! It’s important that you sit and wait. They are harmless animals but if you try to approach them at all cost, they might injure themselves while running away.

Mountain goats are well-known to be excellent climbers.

It is very common to see crosses in the French mountains…most of the time, they are there to protect the valley and the hikers. Sometimes, it is to mention the death of a person. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the person was killed in a mountain accident. Some elderly people want their ashes to be spread over the mountain.

It is located in the south-eastern part of France and consists in a mountainous region of the Dauphiné Alps, south of Grenoble and north of Gap, shared between the départements of Isère and Hautes-Alpes.

It rises up to 4,102 m (13,458 ft) at the Barre des Ecrins and covers 918 km² (354 mi²) of high mountain areas, with high peaks, glacier fields, glacier valleys, alpine pastures, subalpine woodlands and lakes.

Its borders mostly correspond to these of the Massif des Ecrins, delimited by the main valleys of rivers Drac, Romanche and Durance (with its Guisane dependency).

The park has been awarded the European Diploma of Protected Areas.

Pétarel lake (above and below)

More information at: http://atlas.parcsnationaux.org/ecrins/

• Mercantour National Park (Parc national du Mercantour) (18 August 1979) – 685 km²

Since its creation, the Mercantour Park has proven to be popular, with 800,000 visitors every year enjoying the 600 km of marked footpaths.

The protected area covers some 685 km², consisting of a central uninhabited zone comprising seven valleys – Roya, Bévéra, Vésubie, Tinée, Haut Var/Cians (in the Alpes-Maritimes) plus Verdon and Ubaye (in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) – and a peripheral zone comprising 28 villages. Many of them are perched villages, concealing a great architecture (numerous churches decorated with murals and altar pieces by primitive Niçois painters). More than 150 rural sites are located within the Park. Around Mt.Bego there are petroglyphs pecked out on schist and granite faces. They have been dated from the late neolithic and bronze ages.

In the heart of this setting of vertiginous summits (including Mont Gélas, the highest point in the Maritime Alps at 3,143 m), lies a gem listed as a Historical Monument, the famous Vallée des Merveilles, the aptly named “valley of marvels”. At the foot of Mont Bégo, climbers can admire some 37,000 petroglyphs dating back to the Bronze Age, representing weapons, cattle and human figures that are sometimes very mysterious. A less challenging destination is the Musée des Merveilles at Tende.

More information at: http://www.mercantour.eu/

OVERSEAS DEPARTMENTS OF FRANCE:

• Guadeloupe National Park (Parc national de la Guadeloupe) (20 February 1989) – 173 km²

Guadeloupe National Park is located in the Leeward Islands of the eastern Caribbean region. The Grand Cul-de-Sac Marin Nature Reserve (French: Réserve Naturelle du Grand Cul-de-Sac Marin) is a marine protected area adjacent to the park and administered in conjunction with it. Together, these protected areas comprise the Guadeloupe Archipelago (French: l’Archipel de la Guadeloupe) biosphere reserve.

In 1992, Guadeloupe National Park achieved international recognition when the core area of the park and the Grand Cul-de-Sac Marin Nature Reserve were designated as an international biosphere reserve by UNESCO.

More information at: http://www.in-west-indies.com/guadeloupe/art-culture/natural-sites.htm

• Guiana Amazonian Park (Parc amazonien de Guyane) (2007) – 33,900 km²

(mostly a marine parc, with little land area)

More information at: http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0228-french_guiana1.html

• Réunion National Park (Parc national de la Réunion) (2007) – 1,054 km²

It is located in the western Indian Ocean region. The park protects the endemic ecosystems of “Les Hauts“, Réunion’s mountainous interior.

For more information, please visit the website:
http://www.parc-national-reunion.prd.fr/UNESCO/En_Depliant_PMUnesco.pdf