Naturefriends collect 110,000 signatures for the establishment of the Hohe Tauern National Park and offer their property around the Sonnblick as national park area. Two years later, the Naturefriends national park model area Sonnblick/Kolm Saigurn is inaugurated. Naturefriends establish hiking trails and a national park information point at the Naturefriends house Zimmererhütte.

However, it is the responsibility of the provinces to officially declare areas a national park. In 1981, Carinthia declares the Carinthian part of the area as national park; Salzburg follows Carinthia’s example in 1983. Incorporating the East Tyrol part of the area in the national park was a highly controversial issue, mainly due to the plans for the construction of a big hydroelectric plant that included the famous waterfalls of the Isel river, which were luckily abandoned in the end. It was only in 1991 that it became part of the national park. In 2001, the Carinthian part, and in 2006, the Salzburg and Tyrolean parts of the Hohe Tauern National Park were internationally declared a Category II Protected Area by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The establishment of the first Austrian national park was possible thanks to decades-long Naturefriends commitment, which had started as early as the 1950s.