Elm-Lappwald Nature Park
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The Elm-Lappwald Nature Park (german: Naturpark Elm-Lappwald) is a nature park in southwest
Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...
, east of Brunswick in central
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. It is dominated by the forested hill ranges of the
Elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North ...
,
Lappwald The Lappwald is a heavily wooded range of hills, 20 km long and up to 5 km wide, in central Germany. It stretches northwards from the town of Helmstedt. The border between Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt runs through the woods, of which ...
and Dorm as well as the region known as the Helmstedt Bowl (''Helmstedter Mulde'').


Geography


Location

The nature park has an area of about and lies within the districts of Helmstedt and
Wolfenbüttel Wolfenbüttel (; nds, Wulfenbüddel) is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, the administrative capital of Wolfenbüttel District. It is best known as the location of the internationally renowned Herzog August Library and for having the largest ...
. It is bordered to the west by the city of Brunswick and to the north by
Wolfsburg Wolfsburg (; Eastphalian: ''Wulfsborg'') is the fifth largest city in the German state of Lower Saxony, located on the river Aller. It lies about east of Hanover and west of Berlin. Wolfsburg is famous as the location of Volkswagen AG's hea ...
. The A 2 motorway from Hanover to Berlin cuts through the northern part of the park. Within the nature park are the following hill ranges, landscapes and forests: *
Elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North ...
*
Lappwald The Lappwald is a heavily wooded range of hills, 20 km long and up to 5 km wide, in central Germany. It stretches northwards from the town of Helmstedt. The border between Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt runs through the woods, of which ...
* Dorm *Elz *Eiz * Helmstedt Bowl * Rieseberg and Rieseberg Moor *Kampstüh Forest near
Lehre Lehre is a municipality in the district of Helmstedt, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The current population is 11,539 and is situated approximately southwest of Wolfsburg, and Braunschweig. The municipality received the name of Lehre on June 10, 88 ...
From a landscape point of view the nature park belongs to the Eastphalian Uplands. It is located between the highlands of the
Harz The Harz () is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' derives from the Middle High German ...
to the south and the Lüneburg Heath on the
North German Plain The North German Plain or Northern Lowland (german: Norddeutsches Tiefland) is one of the major geographical regions of Germany. It is the German part of the North European Plain. The region is bounded by the coasts of the North Sea and the Balt ...
to the north. Climatically the park lies in the transition zone between the
maritime Maritime may refer to: Geography * Maritime Alps, a mountain range in the southwestern part of the Alps * Maritime Region, a region in Togo * Maritime Southeast Asia * The Maritimes, the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prin ...
and
continental Continental may refer to: Places * Continent, the major landmasses of Earth * Continental, Arizona, a small community in Pima County, Arizona, US * Continental, Ohio, a small town in Putnam County, US Arts and entertainment * ''Continental'' ( ...
zones.


History


Park history

The nature park was founded in 1977 thanks to cooperation between the districts of Helmstedt and Wolfenbüttel and the city of Brunswick. The Elm-Lappwald Nature Park has since become part of the
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
and European
Geopark A geopark is a protected area with internationally significant geology within which sustainable development is sought and which includes tourism, conservation, education and research concerning not just geology but other relevant sciences. In 2 ...
of Harz–Brunswick Land–Eastphalia.


Geological history

The last ice age ( the
Weichselian glaciation The Weichselian glaciation was the last glacial period and its associated glaciation in northern parts of Europe. In the Alpine region it corresponds to the Würm glaciation. It was characterized by a large ice sheet (the Fenno-Scandian ice sheet) ...
) around 12,000 years ago deposited a layer of loess up to 3 metres thick in the southern part of the Helmstedt Bowl and in the entire Schöppenstedt Basin, on which fertile
black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...
and
brown earth Brown earth is a type of soil. Brown earths are mostly located between 35° and 55° north of the Equator. The largest expanses cover western and central Europe, large areas of western and trans-Uralian Russia, the east coast of America and easte ...
s were formed. During periods of thaw, the ice sheets created the detailed shape of the land. A thick deciduous vegetation developed in the time after the ice age and covered the whole area of the present-day park. Their species matched the soil conditions. For example, in the northern part of the park oak and hornbeam woods alternated with beech and oak woods and with carrs on the wet, peaty areas (
fen A fen is a type of peat-accumulating wetland fed by mineral-rich Groundwater, ground or surface water. It is one of the main types of wetlands along with marshes, swamps, and bogs. Bogs and fens, both peat-forming ecosystems, are also known as ...
s). In the southern part, beech forests predominated.


Settlement history

The area of the present-day nature park was already permanently settled in the 6th century BC, as evinced by the
megalith A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...
graves. The settlement of this region by man changed the natural, vegetative cover, albeit the first settlers in the middle
Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...
, who were hunters, fishermen and gatherers, did not made any significant contribution to these changes. The hollows in the area with their deposits of loess soils encouraged early arable farming during the
Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...
. The dense woods were cleared very early on. The greatest loss of woodland occurred during the time of the great clearances (900 to 1200 AD), when the natural landscape was "brought under cultivation". Today place names ending in ''-rode'', ''-hörst'' and ''-feld'' go back to this time of settlement. The Cistercian monks of Mariental in particular established numerous 'clearance villages'. Abbenrode, Hemkenrode and Erkerode on the northwest slope of the Elm and Rotenkamp on the Rieseberg date back to that time. In the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
there were clearly more settlements in the region. Almost half of them were given up again by their owners and fell into ruin, becoming abandoned villages. There is a particularly large number of these in the Lappwald, on the Dorm and on the southwest slope of the
Elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North ...
. With its good soils, the area continues to be used for arable farming. Since the Middle Ages the towns of
Königslutter Königslutter am Elm is a town in the district of Helmstedt in Lower Saxony, Germany. Geography It is located on the northeastern slopes of the Elm hill range, within the Elm-Lappwald Nature Park, about east of Brunswick, west of the distric ...
,
Schöningen Schöningen is a town of about 11,000 inhabitants in the district of Helmstedt, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Geography The town is located on the southeastern rim of the Elm hill range, near the border with the state of Saxony-Anhalt. In its curren ...
,
Schöppenstedt Schöppenstedt is a small town in the district of Wolfenbüttel, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the ''Samtgemeinde'' ("collective municipality") of Elm-Asse. Geography It is situated southwest of the Elm and Asse hil ...
and Helmstedt, all within the nature park, have been steeped in history. A key factor in the early development of Helmstedt (already established by 952) was its location on the trade route from Brunswick to Magdeburg, the present B 1 federal highway.


Flora and fauna

The
Elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North ...
is the largest and most attractive beech forest in North Germany. Amongst the varied landscapes of the natur park are large areas of forest, moors, springs, lakes, heathland, salt meadows and chalk downs, rich in plant species. The park is home to over 800 species of plant, of which more than 10% are endangered. Birds, mammals and amphibians also occur in abundance in the nature parks habitats. The Reitling valley in the Elm and the Brunnen valley in the
Lappwald The Lappwald is a heavily wooded range of hills, 20 km long and up to 5 km wide, in central Germany. It stretches northwards from the town of Helmstedt. The border between Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt runs through the woods, of which ...
have been described as "idyllic". :de:Naturpark Elm-Lappwald


See also

*
List of nature parks in Germany Nature parks in Germany (german: Naturparks) have been established under section 22, paragraph 4 of that country's Federal Nature Conservation Act (BNatSchG). there were 103 nature parks, comprising about 27 percent of the total land area of Ger ...


References


Sources

*''Naturpark Elm-Lappwald'', fotografiert von Peter Hamel, Text von Hermann Gutmann u. Friedrich Schröder, Hamburg 1989, Hrsg.: Hans Christians, Hamburg


External links


Description by the Lower Saxon Environment Ministry


by the
BfN The German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (german: Bundesamt für Naturschutz, ''BfN'') is the German government's scientific authority with responsibility for national and international nature conservation. BfN is one of the government' ...

Tourism in the Elm-Lappwald Nature Park
{{Coord, 52.226, 10.856, dim:30000_region:DE, display=title Nature parks in Lower Saxony Helmstedt (district)