A visit to the Maison du Parc in the Ecrins National Park is essential to learn how to read its landscape.
Chamois, ibexes, marmots, ermines, foxes, Golden Eagles and round about 320 other species inhabit the Ecrins National Park, created in 1973. Covering a surface of almost 92,000 hectares, members of thousands of plant families can be found in the park, including glacier buttercups, edelweiss, natural bonsais and protected species such as sea holly. The landscape can be likened to an open book on climate development. "We know that glaciers hundreds of metres deep covered the valleys here 10,000 years ago", Thierry Maillet, director of the National Park, reminds us. "It was the last large scale glaciation. Now that global warming is on everybody's minds, who remembers that 40 years ago it was the cold that people were afraid of?" In 1970, the White Glacier had grown so much that there was talk of a new Ice Age. Now that's not long ago!" Thierry Maillet points out. The fact is however that the glaciers in the Ecrins started to melt in a big way in 1986; they have retreated 600 metres in 20 years, with a record 100 metres in 2003." These observations and information on recent measures have been provided by the curators of the National Park. You will find them in the Maison du Parc in Vallouise, which gives an essential introduction to the reality of one of the largest and most varied wildlife sanctuaries in France.
