Söderåsen: 1,600 Hectares of Restored Swedish Forest
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- Söderåsen National Park was established in 2001 to protect more than 1,600 hectares (4,000 acres) of the Söderåsen ridgeline, making it one of northern Europe's largest continuous protected broadleaf forests, roughly 90 minutes by car from Copenhagen.
- A sediment core from Odensjön Lake revealed that in the 18th and 19th centuries the plateau was largely deforested and repeatedly burned as grazing heath, with an 1840 painting of the Kopparhatten viewpoint (212m) showing the landscape almost bare of trees.
- Since designation, conservation efforts have focused on felling non-native Norway spruce and replanting broadleaved species, while old slopes that escaped historical clearance are now the closest to ancient woodland, with ferns, lichen and fungi recolonising the land.
- The gateway village of Röstånga serves as the staging point for visitors entering on foot, bike or horseback, and the park contains multiple wild campsites with wind shelters and barbecue areas.
- Villa Söderåsen, a timber-framed yellow and white guesthouse standing at the park entrance since 1904, offers doubles from 1,095 Swedish Kronor (~£85) B&B, while Söderåsens Skafferi — once Sweden's first nature school — offers doubles from around £78.
- The park's Naturum visitor centre at Skäralid shares premises with Café Italia and overlooks a dam in a rift valley, with ranger-led trails including the three-hour Hjortsprångsrundan (Deer Leap) circular named after a prehistoric hunting method.
Why it matters: The park's transformation from 19th-century grazing heath to one of northern Europe's largest continuous protected broadleaf forests — driven by deliberate felling of non-native Norway spruce and replanting of native species — provides a working model of ecological recovery on a landscape scale, with the author calling it 'living proof that damaged landscapes can recover if nature, and humans, are given half a chance.'
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