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Pass the narrow Baumgartl valley corridor and cross the border to Germany in the direction of Kärlingerhaus, at the same time crossing the border to the Berchtesgaden National Park. The massifs of the Hoher Göll, the Jenner and the Hagengebirge range form the eastern border of the national park, with parts of the Steinerne Meer mountains as the southern border, the Watzmann massif "in the middle" and the Reiteralm meadow as a western border. Overall, it therefore comprises 210 square kilometres. The national park has existed in its current form since 1978; its history as a protected zone began back in 1910, however, with the establishment of the “Plant Protection Area of the Berchtesgaden Alps”, one of the very first protected alpine zones. The aim was to put a stop to the then lively trade in wild alpine flowers from the region – first and foremost gentian and edelweiss. In 1990, the national park together with its immediate surroundings was also made one of the biosphere reserves recognised by UNESCO. The main aim of the Berchtesgaden National Park is to implement the basic principle “Let nature be nature”. In the core area of the protected zone, human intervention is therefore deliberately avoided. Natural developments must be allowed to run their course there unhindered. In the nursing area, on the other hand, traditional activities may be continued, e.g. alpine farming, fishing and navigation on the Königssee lake. Other priority tasks of the national park are research, environmental education and relaxation. The research contributes to furthering our understanding of natural processes, e.g. through the observation of the ways of life of chamois or golden eagle. In order to give visitors a close-to-nature experience using all of their senses and to inform them on the national park, the environmental education initiative comprises a diverse offer (e.g. guided walks, information points). Visitors can relax on the national park’s well built, extensive 230km trail network. Thanks to its size and variety of sites, the Berchtesgaden National Park contains a great number of plants, animal communities and species, many of which are rare. In principle, they are all protected in the national park. This diversity is also reflected in the numbers recorded by present research, which counts around 2000 mushroom varieties, 1000 vascular plants (including well-known flowering plants such as gentian and edelweiss) and 55 species of mammals for example. By climbing to
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