Our special purpose association

Nature park Bergisches Land

Structure and composition

The nature park Bergisches Land celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2023.

It was founded in 1973 as a special-purpose association (public corporation).

The special-purpose association has the task of establishing and operating the association area as a nature park in accordance with § 27 of the Federal Nature Conservation Act.

According to this law, nature parks are areas to be uniformly developed and maintained, which

are large-scale,
are predominantly landscape conservation areas or nature reserves,
are particularly suitable for recreation because of their landscape conditions
and in which sustainable tourism is aimed for,
are designated for recreation according to the requirements of regional planning,
serve the preservation, development or restoration of a landscape characterized by
diverse use and its diversity of species and biotopes and in which, to this end,
a permanently environmentally compatible land use is aimed at,
are particularly suitable for promoting sustainable regional development,
enable education for sustainable development.

Zweckverbandsversammlung 2019 auf Schloss Burg

Nature parks are to be planned, structured, developed and further developed in accordance with their purposes described above, taking into account the objectives and principles of nature conservation and landscape management.

The area has a size of 2,027 km² (see map) and the nature park is thus one of the largest nature parks in Germany.

Members of the special-purpose association "Bergisches Land Nature Park" are the Oberbergische Kreis, the Rheinisch-Bergische Kreis and the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis as well as the independent cities of Cologne, Remscheid, Solingen and Wuppertal.

The headquarter of the Nature Park Bergisches Land is Gummersbach, the district capital of the Oberbergische Kreis.

The organ of the association are the association assembly and the association chairman.

The association assembly consists of the representatives of the association members. Each member of the association sends 3 persons authorized to represent the association with one vote each to the association assembly.

The association assembly decides on all matters of the association, as far as it does not concern business of the current administration.

For this purpose, the association assembly usually meets twice a year.

The chairman of the association is the district administrator of Oberberg, Jochen Hagt.