Rauno Ruuhijärvi

Soidensuojelun perusohjelma

Ruuhijärvi R. Soidensuojelun perusohjelma.

English title: Basic plan for peatland preservation in Finland

Tiivistelmä

A number of peatland conservation programmes have been drawn up in Finland during the last ten years, to date, however, only those programmes covering state-owned land have been carried through to completion. The total area of peatlands either protected by nature conservation legislation or by decision of the State Board of Forestry is 193 000 ha. Completion of the network of protected areas is especially urgent in the southern parts of the country owing to the rapid increase in the utilization of peatlands for forestry purposes and peat extraction. The working group set up by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has just completed its proposed basic peatland conservation programme. Methodology required in the determination of the conservation value of peatlands has also been developed during the drawing up of this programme. The starting point of conservation is the protection of peatland complexes. An attempt has been made to find sufficient representative peatland complexes, which are still in a natural state, from all the Finnish climatological peatland areas (Fig. 1.). Peatland plant community conservation is being carried out both within the framework of larger peatland areas and peatland complexes and in addition by means of different conservation sites representing rare peatland types. Eutrophic fens and eutrophic spruce and birch swamps are especially threatened. As far as the protection of peatland wild-life is concerned, special attention has been paid to peatland bird-life, which better describes the quality and variety of peatland sites than any other group of fauna. Threatened peatland flora have also been documented. The most important criterion used in the determination of the value of a site in the basic peatland conservation programme, is determination of the representability of the peatland complex in question. Peatland complexes have been classified into three groups on the basis of aerial photography interpretation and other data. Classification based on the abundance of different peatland site types required field work. The occurrence and abundance of 28 different major peatland site types have been examined in the basic programme. Conservation sites have been divided on the basis of their peatland type abundance into four classes. If the area in question includes more than 16 different peatland types, then it belongs to Class I. With 15—11 types it belongs to Class II, with 10—6 to Class III and with 5—1 to Class IV. Corresponding conservation site classification has been carried out on the basis of the relative frequency of 51 species of peatland birds. If over 22 species of bird nest on a peatland it belongs to Class I. The number of bird species in Class II sites varies from 22—15, in Class III sites from 14 to 8 and in Class IV sites from 7 to 1. The above-mentioned three classification systems have finally been combined to form a general classification system for peatland conservation sites. Threatened animal and plant species, educational and research use of the peatland, geological structure and in some cases also scenic value are used as additional bases. The final result is a four-class classification system. 0. Internationally important peatland area, which represents the peatland complex type typical in Finland but rare in other countries. There are at most 1 or 2 such peatlands in each peatland complex type area marked on the map (Fig. 1). 1. A nationally important peatland is a larger and complete peatland complex, which should be preserved as an example of the ecological variation of peatland complexes. The most important bird sanctuaries, threatened peatland types and sites of rare peatland fauna and permanent research areas belong to this category. II. Regionally important peatlands are examples of the local scenery, habitats of regionally threatened plant and animal species or important educational sites. III. Locally important peatlands are usually small conservation sites for peatland complexes or individual peatland types. Their preservation would satisfy the needs of education, nature study, berry picking and the protection of peatland fauna. Only sites belonging to Classes 0 and 1 have been included in the basic peatland conservation programme. 337 of them lie to the south of the Arctic Circle (Fig. 1). The conservation sites have been listed in order of importance for each area. The basic programme covers a total of 290 000 ha of peatland. Of this, 58 000 ha of peatland have earlier been protected. The total area of peatlands in Finland lying below the Arctic Circle has originally been about 6,7 mill. ha. Thus 4,7 % of the total area of peatlands is included in the basic programme, rising to 5 % when peatlands protected at the regional and local level are included. The working group is at present involved with the part of the basic programme which covers Lapland, where relatively large conservation areas (90 000 ha) have earlier been established. Attention is also being paid to the protection of rare peatland types and threatened flora and fauna throughout the country.

Vastaanotettu 31.10.2017 Julkaistu 1.1.1978

Katselukerrat 1215

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