Hamburg Wadden Sea National Park

Basically, the Nationalpark Hamburgisches Wattenmeer is consisting of the islands Neuwerk, Scharhörn and Nigehörn, located in the mouth of the river Elbe, as well as the tidal flat around.

The islands are located around 13 km to the west of Cuxhaven, and thus, in a distance of more than 100 km from Hamburg - but nonetheless these little islands are belonging to Hamburg politically.

The national park was founded in 1990 in order to conserve the particular beauties of nature, and in order to give the nature its "free will". In 1992 the national park was acknowledged as biosphere reserve by the UNESCO, since 2011 it belongs to the UNESCO world natural heritage, together with the rest of the tidelands in Germany (Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxonia) and the Netherlands.

On a plain of 13.750 hectares the Nationalpark Hamburgisches Wattenmeer is the smallest one of the three german tidelands national parks (besides this one there is the Nationalpark Niedersächsisches Wattenmeer and the Nationalpark Schleswig-Holsteinisches Wattenmeer).

Directly along the visitors' pathway in the eastern area of the Neuwerk island there are thousands seabirds breeding: black headed gulls, herring gulls, oystercatchers, see swallows and sandwich terns.

The nationalpark is divided into two different protection areas: zone I and zone II. People are allowed to enter zone I, but there are some restrictions (e. g. do not leave the marked pathways in order to not disturb the breeding birds). Zone II is out of bounds for humans.

The eastern part of Neuwerk belong to protection zone I, but trespassing Scharhörn island is allowed after permission by the responsible ornithologist living there. It's possible to get to Scharhörn island during low tide by walking, and one must use a marked pathway through the tidelands.

Nigehörn island is part of the protection zone II and must not be trespassed by humans. The only excetion is once a year, when the responsible ornithologist is coming to the island for a couple of hours to count the nests. Apart from that no human beings will be on this island, and it can be observed with field glasses from Scharhörn island. Nigehörn island is not a natural island, but was created by humans in 1989 by filling in 1.2 million cubic meters of sand. This is meant as a compensation for the permanent loss of plain on Scharhörn island.