Åsnen National Park
Are you looking for a stunning lake district of Southeast Småland. Then Lake Åsnen is your destination. It constitutes a unique lake archipelago with more than a thousand islands. It is a protected nature area in the South of Sweden and offers an incredible natural mosaic. It’s Sweden’s youngest national park with valuable and unique natural environments. It is the host of Småland’s third largest lake: 150 km 2 area and 700 km of shoreline, The average depth is three meters.
Åsnen National Park, which was formed in 2018 and thus became Sweden’s 30th national park with approximately 19 square kilometer of stunning nature of which approximately 75% is water. The national park has a flat terrain with valuable forest land, many large stone and boulder fields. For example. there are hundred-year-old deciduous forests that belong to Sweden’s most valuable woodlands. In the south there are important marshlands.
The green infrastructure
The green infrastructure is a combination of nature resources such as forests, fields, parks, grasslands, wetlands, lakes, watercourses and other areas such as coastal areas. It is important to connect valuable nature sites to increase biodiversity . This creates habitats for flora and fauna and is for the benefit of nature and for people. National parks are a part of this effort. The Åsnen’s national park, Sweden’s 30th and is part of the Southeast Småland forest and Lake District. In this area you can find an additional 15 nature reserves.
Forest is one of the key economic resources and at the same time forest plays an important role in climate change. The forest’s ability to retain carbon constitutes an important factor for the environmental protection. To create and maintain a green infrastructure requires an effective management and protection of forests, wetland and watercourses.
Activities
To experience Åsnen’s and the national park’s archipelago, a boat is required, or perhaps more preferably, a kayak. Here, you truly enter a quiet and unspoiled archipelago with primeval forest-like islands.
There is a wide range of activities, such as guided bird watching, fishing with a guide and nature school for children. The Åsnen area is easy to discover on foot, with a canoe and kayak or with a bike. In the area there are several signposted bike trails, and large parts of them are completely car-free.
There are several unique rural accommodation options, camping sites and outdoor activity companies. They can offer you guided tours or information to your self-guided Åsnen tour. There are also bike rental companies that can offer different kinds of inclusive services.
There are several companies that can help you to book your experience, one of them is my company Cross Baltica.
