4 December 2003

FREUDENSTADT - Most of the Black Forest, a scenic region of German hills, is to be declared a "nature park", a status that encourages the farmers to protect the woods and animals.

Peter Dombrowsky, chairman of the Black Forest Nature Park Association, said many more rural districts had decided to join the existing Southern Black Forest Park, so that it extended over most of the hills for an area of 370,000 hectares.

Apart from giving its name to a cherry-and-chocolate cake, the Black Forest is best known for cuckoo clocks and touristy villages high above the vineyards of the southern Rhine Valley.

Dombrowsky said Wednesday it had taken about two years to enlarge the park to 103 districts, with a pact to be signed December 16 in the town of Freudenstadt.

Unlike a national park, where there are no towns and the landscape is close to its natural state, a German nature park is usually a mixture of woods and farmland that attract ramblers and bird-lovers. Germany has about 90 nature parks, making up a quarter of its surface.