Colourful Veluwezoom National Park by Nicky Kapel

About "Colourful Veluwezoom National Park"

by Nicky Kapel

About the artwork

National Park Veluwezoom is a 5,000-hectare nature reserve on the Veluwe in the province of Gelderland, owned in its entirety by the Natuurmonumenten association. In 1930, it became the first national park in the Netherlands. The hilly area largely consists of varied forest, heathland, and an occasional sand drift. In the southern, most hilly part of the park are several estates such as Heuven and Beekhuizen. Central in the national park is the well-known Posbank viewpoint. The nature reserve stretches across the municipalities of Arnhem, Rheden and Rozendaal.
When the climate became warmer after the last glacial, the area became completely covered with deciduous forest over time.

Over the centuries, after the first people settled in the area, most of the forest was cut down or disappeared due to excessive grazing by sheep and cattle. This created vast heathlands, such as the Herikhuizerveld and the Rheder- and Worthrhederheide. In some places even all vegetation disappeared in the Middle Ages and sand drifts were created, such as the Rozendaal sand and the Rheder and Worthrheder sand. Only some old coppice forests such as the Imbosch, 't Asselt and the Onzalige Bossen always remained overgrown with forest.

After the Middle Ages, several country estates with parks and park forests were founded on the fertile soils on the southern edge of the area, such as Beekhuizen, Heuven and Rhederoord. In the 19th century, a start was made to plant the moors and sand drifts with forest, creating extensive forests of Scots pine in the northern part of the park in the Schadde fields and Eerbeekse Veld.

(Source: Wikipedia)