Mercantour

Declared in 1979 in the Maritime Alps near Nice, Mercantour is celebrated for an episode of spontaneous conservation: in 1992 a group of wolves crossed the border from Italy's Abruzzo National Park and recolonised these mountains of their own accord, marking the wolf's natural return to France after more than sixty years' absence — with no artificial reintroduction involved — a milestone still studied, and still a source of tension with local livestock farming.