The United States is the first nation to create what we know of as "national parks", but I'm interested in finding out if other nations before the U.S. had areas of land that were for preservation purposes only, such as an area where logging, hunting, or other disruptive industry was forbidden. Thanks!
National parks? I'm not too sure those would have existed but a very similar concept was very common. This was in the form of massive estates owned by the rich and royals. Hunting would be forbidden without the owners consent and great punishments would follow when those laws were broken. Though hunting would be done by the owner it would be quite a protected area.