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Biodiversity

Magma UNESCO Global Geopark has an intriguing past which stretches a billion years back in time. 

Biodiversity in the Magma UNESCO Global Geopark

If you stand on a ridge and look out over the landscape in Magma Geopark, you can easily get the impression that you are on an alien planet. The landscape in the Geopark is distinctive with its cone-shaped and bare moors. The dominant rock type, anorthosite, is hard and compact. This causes the soil to become depleted and the vegetation to become poor. In the north and east we find wider valleys with loose deposits from the last ice age. This provides a more lush landscape suitable for agricultural purposes. Many waters and waterways break up the landscape and contribute to creating a varied and exciting nature.

In addition to the soil, the climate in the Geopark is also of great importance for the selection of plant species. The coastal climate is suitable for plants that cannot tolerate low winter temperatures and that would also like to have a long and warm summer to ripen seeds or develop buds before the winter frosts arrive. This means that we find many plant species here that have a very limited national distribution.

The coastal landscape was more wooded before modern humans started farming and animal husbandry. The need for good forage areas for the livestock contributed to the forest disappearing and being replaced by the vast, open heather between 2 and 4 thousand years ago. Another effect of deforestation was swamping. The forest has a significantly greater consumption of water than open heath. Thus, the result was more bog formation. Large areas of marshland along the coast were formed in this way. 

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Photo: Magma Geopark