With Estonian Nature Tours you are visiting the certified best of Europe’s wilderness

Estonian Nature Tours (ENT) as a local partner of PAN PARKS ensures that you are visiting the best of Europe’s wilderness. Since May 2011 Estonian Nature Tours cooperates with the PAN Parks Foundation, the European wilderness protection organization. ENT is developing tours to Soomaa – so far the only certified PAN Parks area in Estonia - or in the regions around the park. These tours provide an opportunity to discover Europe’s wilderness in a way which fully respects the natural environment and supports local businesses.

Local businesses are certified, based on environmental standards and their commitment to conservation. Local PAN Parks partners, offering high-quality facilities and working together with the park, are recognized by the PAN Parks logo; this guarantees that your visit contributes to the protection of nature. These partners are knowledgeable about the park and help visitors discover wilderness firsthand. They offer exciting activities to enable you to have a unique experience of European wilderness! In Estonia, where quite a number of most important parks consist of species-rich seminatural communities, vast unaltered purely natural areas are not so frequent. Soomaa, which became a PAN Park in 2009, is one of such areas.

PAN Parks is a European-wide organization focusing on the protection of the continent’s most undisturbed wilderness areas. PAN Parks creates a network of European protected areas certified in accord with PAN Parks quality standards, covering relevant wilderness protection, social, economic and cultural aspects. These parks offer a remarkably extensive wilderness area with undisturbed nature where natural systems of animals and plants are safe to thrive and people appreciate the pleasures offered by wilderness with the respect it deserves.

In a PAN Park the landscape is of outstanding beauty, its extraordinary natural values are among our most valuable European treasures and heritage. The well-protected area’s size gives wildlife a real space to thrive. In a PAN Park, the nature you enjoy has been protected according to the best European practices. Animals can roam free and plants are safe to thrive in true wilderness. The park management co-operates closely with the people who live around the park.

Text: Peeter Vissak