The Stelvio National Park has been established in 1935 in order to "protect and improve flora, increase fauna and in order to preserve the special geological formations and the beauties of the landscape" of the Ortler-Cevedale mountain range, moreover, in order to "promote development of tourism" in some of the most beautiful valleys of the Alps.
Thus the Stelvio National Park, which according to its extension is by itself the most extensive of the Alps, represents only the heart of an ever wider protected area which stretches over nearly 400,000 hectares.