Matsalu

Matsalu National Park lies in the counties of Lääne and Pärnu, in western Estonia, around the shallow Matsalu Bay, which opens onto the Väinameri Sea. Its predecessor, the Matsalu Nature Reserve, was established in 1957 to protect birds and their breeding, moulting and staging areas, and in 2004 the area was given national park status.

The bay is extremely shallow and is ringed by an extensive belt of reedbed, flooded coastal meadows, wooded meadows and mudflats, a mosaic maintained for centuries by traditional grazing and mowing. That system supports one of the most important concentrations of migratory birds in Europe: on the autumn passage tens of thousands of common cranes and hundreds of thousands of geese and barnacle geese gather here on the Baltic and North Sea flyway.

In 1976 Matsalu was included in the List of Wetlands of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention, one of the first in the region. Besides the birds, the park protects the characteristic landscapes of western Estonia and the cultural heritage of the Väinameri region, and each autumn it hosts the Matsalu International Nature Film Festival.