For Romania, the Geopark opens a new era in approaching natural and cultural heritage conservation in the context of local development.

For the first time in our country, universities, central and local authorities, antepreneurs, schools and NGOs are participating as parteners in creating and implementing an integrated strategy for sustainable development.

To best describe the Hateg, think of:

- mountains with high pastures suitable for the sheep heards,

- forests of fir, beech and oak that fall over the hills, with patches of orchards

- valleys that host fields and small villages.

For the Geopark, this rich landscape allows the set-up of tourism structures and also the diversification of the packages tourism.

The geopark aims to protect, catalogue and monitor, the local biodiversity, and also to integrate it in the sustainable development strategy to be applied in the Geopark.

From the first stages of the project, activities have been conducted in the region in order to evaluate the biodiversity.

Several scientific papers have been published and a special publication, on butterflies, has been produced and illustrated only with information from the region.

The history of the Hateg Country is spanning more than 300 million years of history when the Earth surface was completely different than today. The rocks and fossils found now were formed in places and environments like coral reefs, volcanic island in the Tethys Sea populated by dinosaurs and other reptiles, primitive mammals and birds, or continental areas covered by Ice Age glaciers.
The geopark is guiding the visitors in geo-trails to discover the Retezat type granite, metamorphic rocks, bauxite quarries, reef limestone, areas of volcanic activity, fossil sites, karst and cave systems.

For Romania, the Geopark opens a new era in approaching natural and cultural heritage conservation in the context of local development.

For the first time in our country, universities, central and local authorities, antepreneurs, schools and NGOs are participating as parteners in creating and implementing an integrated strategy for sustainable development.