Why are national parks so high above sea level?

Question

I know not all of them are high above sea level. But a lot of the big ones in the uk are 200 metres above sea level and I would like why this is?

Answer 1

Not all of them are high, by the way I live 5 km away from an island that is part of a national park.

Answer 2

Several reasons:

1. By the time the national park movement got underway in the 19th century, most of the lowland areas in Europe were already populated and used for farming or grazing. Lowland areas were no longer "natural" and were expensive to acquire.

2. Ideas of the "sublime" and "beautiful" tended toward wild landscapes,not the tamer landscapes of lowland areas.

3. As the name "park" suggests, these areas were selected for their unusual character. Most lowland areas were considered "ordinary."

4. Biological conservation was added to the mission of the parks much later, and thus lowland biomes of great importance were not considered worth preserving.