The Fulufjell mountain massif is a mountain plateau with gently sloping summit areas and steep wooded hillsides that is divided between Sweden and Norway. Sweden’s part of this natural area was protected as a national park in 2002 and called Fulufjällets National Park. It covers an area of approximately 385 km². On the Norwegian side of the border, Fulufjellet National Park covers an area of 82.5 km². This means that the total transboundary area of national park is just under 500 km².

Why protection?

Fulufjällets National Park in Sweden was established in 2002 to preserve an essentially untouched southern mountainous area that is home to distinctive vegetation and great natural heritage. On various occasions, the Swedish side expressed that they would like an adjacent nature conservation area to be established in Norway. This would safeguard the heritage associated with the entirety of this forest and mountainous area. Against this backdrop, Fulufjellet National Park was established on 27 April 2012 to preserve a large natural area that hadn’t experienced any heavy encroachments and had distinctive, representative ecosystems in the border areas.

Nature and its biodiversity do not recognize administrative boundaries. In the work on protecting valuable nature, it is therefore important to be able to view areas that stretch across national borders in context. The Norwegian Fulufjellet National Park helps to safeguard ecological, landscape and outdoor recreation values that are linked to the entirety, size and coherence of Fulufjellet, and is therefore also an important contribution to preserving very valuable parts of Scandinavian natural heritage.

Plant and animal life

Fulufjellet provides birds and mammals with good nesting and breeding grounds, and predators find dens and territories to live in. The vegetation in the high mountains is not very varied, but there is much greater biodiversity at lower elevations. Areas of primeval forest with pine trees that are up to 400 years old can be found in the park. The world’s oldest recorded tree can be found on the Swedish side of the border. It is a spruce tree called Old Tjikko and is estimated to be almost 10,000 years old.

Landscape and geology

Ancient mountainous areas. The geology in Fulufjellet mainly consists of sandstone, a type of sedimentary rock that was deposited 1.4 billion years ago.

History and culture

In Fulufjellet, there were several old roads that ran between Norway and Sweden – currently used as hiking trails.

Management

The Fulufjellet National Park Board has its own management-oriented website.