Bavarian Forest (Bayerischer Wald)

Declared in 1970, it was Germany's first national park and adopted from the outset the then revolutionary management principle of Natur Natur sein lassen — letting nature be nature — allowing natural processes such as bark beetle outbreaks or windstorms to run their course without human intervention. The philosophy caused strong local controversy in the 1990s when wide stretches of spruce forest died in an outbreak, now reinterpreted as a successful natural regeneration towards a more resilient mixed forest.