The article discuses the nature protection function as implemented in national parks that have adopted the space context of the territorially linked municipalities, including the funding sources of the activities carried out in parks. The research was initiated by identifying anthropogenic hazards occurring in the area of national parks. In the next part of the study, the priority task of national parks, i.e., nature protection, was presented in a way that goes beyond the administrative borders of the protected area. The transformations of the nature protection function, covering 117 municipalities territorially linked with 23 national parks in Poland in the period 2001-2016, are presented. For this purpose, a statistical analysis was conducted using linear ordering methods, and the synthetic development method was applied. In the third stage of the study the funding sources of national parks were analysed, which allowed identifying the involvement of individual institutions in funding national parks and, indirectly, the scale of the activities carried out by national parks. Due to limited data availability, the third stage was implemented for the years 2015-2016. The article draws attention to the need of taking a comprehensive approach toward space covered by the area form of nature protection.