Hungary's First National Park Celebrates 50 Years

The first national park in Hungary was established in 1973 to preserve and protect the unique natural and ethnographic values of the Hortobágy area in the northeastern part of the Great Hungarian Plain. The creation of the Hortobágy National Park was helped by a Pro Natura Memorandum submitted to the government and signed by 21 internationally renowned scientists.

The National Park was originally created on an area of some 52,000 hectares, which has grown over the last 50 years to almost 82,000 hectares. The entire area is a biosphere reserve and more than 20,000 hectares are internationally listed wetlands under the Ramsar Convention.

The whole area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which includes, in addition to the Hortobágy, a significant part of the Nagykunság region and the architectural monuments that define the landscape, including the Nine-arched Bridge, the Hortobágy Inn and the Shepherd's Gate Museum.

The Hortobágy National Park was the third in Europe to be designated a Dark Sky Park by the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) to protect wildlife, natural landscapes and the starry sky. The national park has also been included in the UNESCO Astronomy and World Heritage thematic program through the link between the knowledge of the starry sky and pastoral science. The Dark Sky Park has become an important element of Hortobágy's ecotourism attractions and environmental education.

During the existence of the national park, priority habitat restoration projects have been carried out in the area, such as the reconstruction of the Kunkápolnás marsh, the Egyek-Pusztakócs marshes and the Zám marsh. In addition, various salt marshes, swamps and grasslands have been rehabilitated under the LIFE program. In order to protect birds, the replacement and removal of free-standing wires in the national park area has been carried out.

In addition to the conservation of the natural and cultural heritage, presentation is also a priority. For a long time, the reputation of Hortobágy was maintained by the Máta carriage and horsemen shows puszta (that is, pasture). The traditional knowledge and customs of shepherds grazing large herds of cattle and flocks of sheep are still one of the main values of the Hortobágy. While the Puszta Zoo presents the Hungarian domestic animal breeds indigenous to the Carpathian Basin, the Hortobágy Wildlife Park presents the species that have disappeared from the wilderness – wild horses, aurochs. In the Öreg [Old] Lakes, a restored railway helps to show the unparalleled richness of bird life.