Protected areas, 31 December 2009

The Kingdom of Norway has a total of 39 national parks. Thirty-two of these are on the mainland and 7 on Svalbard. The area of national parks is more than 43 900 km², which is distributed into approximately 29 600 km² on the mainland and 14 400 km² on Svalbard. While national parks are the dominant category within conservation on the Norwegian mainland, is it nature reserves that dominate on Svalbard. However, national parks on Svalbard make up 24 per cent of the total conservation area.

National parks vary in size

On the mainland, the largest national park Hardangervidda has an area of about 3 445 km². The smallest national park is Ormtjernkampen, with less than 9 km². The largest national park on Svalbard is South Spitsbergen, which is 4 957 km², and the smallest, which is almost 70 times larger than the smallest on the mainland, is Indre Wijdefjorden, with 613 km². Svalbard is mainly located on Spitsbergen and Prins Karls Forland. With regard to counties, Oppland and Nordland have the largest area of protected area of national parks, with approximately 5 000 km² each. Not all counties have national parks.

Nature reserves on Svalbard are equivalent to the area of national parks on the mainland

The most frequently occurring category of conservation form is nature reserves. There are 21 of these on Svalbard and more than 1 900 in Norway. On the mainland, nature reserves do not cover a larger area, but on Svalbard it is this form of conservation that has the largest area (41 per cent). The group of islands has a total of 25 200 km² of nature reserves; approximately the same size of area as the national parks on the mainland. The largest nature reserve on Svalbard is Bjørnøya, with 177 km². The smallest nature reserve is the bird sanctuary Guissezholmen, which is less than 1 km².

Nature reserves are located in all counties. Hedmark has the largest area of nature reserve, and also the highest percentage of protected areas of nature reserves of all the counties. Oslo has the smallest conservation area of nature reserves, while Hordaland is the county with the lowest percentage of area from conservation of nature reserves.

Svalbard has non-landscape protected areas

Landscaped protected areas, with 16 291 km², make up an important part of the total area of conservations on the mainland (32 per cent). In 2009, there were 11 new landscape protected areas, with an area of about 1 100 km². By area, they make up about half of the national parks. All the counties have landscaped protected areas. Both in terms of area and percentage of the total landscaped protected area it is Møre and Romsdal that has most, while Østfold has the smallest conservation area of landscaped protected areas. Svalbard has non-landscape protected areas.

In 2009 the category other protections has had a large rise from 406 to 474. Other protection make up less than 1 per cent of the Norwegian area. Svalbard has to compare only one conservation area of other protection - a protected geotop area that is located on the west cost of Spitsbergen.

Cultural heritage has a small amount of area

The amount of conservation areas in total is more than 76 200 for the mainland and Svalbard together. In spite of the high amount, the cultural heritage only consists of 231 km². It is the archaeological monuments and sites on the mainland that form this area.

Archaeological monuments and site dominate

Archaeological monuments and sites are the dominating category within the cultural heritage form both in number and area. This is also the situation on the mainland and Svalbard. Archaeological monuments and sites total 92 and 80 per cent respectively. On Svalbard, most of them are located along the coast at Spitsbergen and Prins Karls Forland. On the mainland, most archaeological monuments and sites are registered in Hedmark, while Rogaland and Oppland have the largest areas conserved for these purposes.

Listed buildings on Svalbard make up 20 per cent of the cultural heritage. Thirty-one per cent of the cultural environments on the mainland are found in Buskerud. Not all counties have cultural environments, and Svalbard has none.

Most security zones are in Finnmark

Finnmark has most security zones, both in area and number, with about 19 and 8 per cent of the total. All counties have security zones. Svalbard does not have security zones.

Pressure on the nature and the cultural heritage

The population growth and modernisation of society have increased the pressure on natural and cultural heritage in recent decades. The Nature Conservation Act and the Cultural Heritage Act are important tools for the authorities in safeguarding a diversity of nature and culture for the future.

Tables:

• Table 1 Protected areas under the Cultural Heritage Act, by county, 2009