National Park Bosland, National park in Limburg, Belgium
National Park Bosland is the largest forested area in Flanders, featuring pine forests, heathlands, and wetland areas. The diverse landscapes support a wide range of plants and animals across the territory.
People lived in the area now covered by Bosland at the end of the last ice age, around 14,000 years ago; stone tools from the Molse Nete valley at Kattenbos are kept in Museum De Kolonie. From about 1850 the heathland was planted mainly with conifers, whose wood served as pit props for the mines. The Flemish government recognised Bosland as a national park on 13 October 2023.
The park's name comes from the Bosland forest; it was launched by Flemish environment minister Hilde Crevits with the aim of making it Flanders' largest and most child-friendly forest. Since 2018 the wolf pair Naya and August have lived here, and from 2027 ten European bison are to roam a fenced 500-hectare reserve.
Visitors enter the park without entrance charges and can find parking near the main areas. Well-maintained trails allow for hiking, cycling, and horseback riding through different parts of the landscape.
The wolf pair Naya and August settled in Bosland in 2018, likely Polish wolves that crossed after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In 2027 a herd of ten European bison is to be reintroduced into a fenced 500-hectare reserve where human intervention stays minimal.
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