Germany

Germany is arranged in three natural bands: the northern plain with North Sea and Baltic coasts, the middle belt of wooded uplands and the Alpine south. The Wadden Sea, a system of tidal flats shared with the Netherlands and Denmark, is a World Heritage Site and one of the most important migratory stopovers on the planet: of the order of ten to twelve million waterbirds use it every year. The beech forests of the centre and east, at Hainich and Jasmund, represent what little remains of the primeval beechwood that covered central Europe. The Bavarian Forest, the country's first national park in 1970, applies a policy of non-intervention that has turned its bark-beetle-killed woodland into a laboratory of natural regeneration and a refuge for the Eurasian lynx. The Elbe, the Rhine and the Danube form the backbone of wetland corridors where beavers, otters and black storks are recovering.