The Mercantour National Park celebrates its 40th anniversary throughout 2019, with a series of successive events taking various forms: exhibitions, films, books, and activities, notably with the launch on July 6-7 in Valberg and a closing event at the Lympia space in Nice in November.
The History of the Park
It should have been the first, but it eventually became the sixth national park created in mainland France. After several decades of negotiations, the Mercantour National Park finally came into being in 1979.
The history of the Mercantour protection dates back well before the National Park, starting in the 19th century, after chamois and ibex, in particular, had been almost decimated by intensive and unrestricted hunting.
A first royal hunting reserve was thus established in 1859 by Victor Emmanuel II, king of Piedmont-Sardinia, on the Mercantour and Argentera mountain ranges.
Then, in 1947, the first Boréon hunting reserve was created. Originally covering 3,500 hectares, it expanded over the years before being renamed the Mercantour hunting reserve, ultimately reaching about 20,000 hectares. On the other side of the border, on the Italian side, the Valdieri-Entracque hunting reserve was founded in 1949, where a handful of ibex still remain.
In 1960, the national parks law was enacted, and the general council of Alpes-Maritimes and then the prefect supported the creation of a National Park in Mercantour a few months later.
However, the project was not simple and faced fierce opposition, to the point that it took 19 years for the project to be completed in 1979, despite the exceptional nature of the territory in terms of its biodiversity, geology, and cultural heritage, particularly the engravings in the valleys of Merveilles and Fontanalba.
