The agriculture in Finland Finland
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| Without cattle grazing valuable landscapes become overgrown. Modern beef breeds are suitable grazers also for traditional rural biotopes. ( K. Raatikainen) |
After 1960s, national political decisions have
strongly supported the intensification of farming. The amount of farms have
since been decreasing, and the size of farms increasing. Grazing cattle has
become a rare sight. Wood pastures and meadows that once were so abundant are
either transformed to arable fields or silvicultural forests, or simply
abandoned as the cattle grazes on cultivated pastures.
Only less
than one percent of the area once grazed or mowed traditionally is left when
compared to the estimated situation 100 years ago. The development is alarming: the number of valuable
sites has continued decreasing drastically. At the moment, only half of the
inventoried sites in Finland
At the moment, several partly
EU-funded projects are aiming at increasing the amount of managed sites, and
improving the quality of management. The management is usually planned to
maintain both the cultural landscape and the diverse species composition of
individual habitat sites. This work has confronted several questions, which
need scientific answers. For example, what is the motivational basis for site
management and conservation? The cultural values and social aspects related to
wood pastures are of great importance when management is reintroduced to an
abandoned site, but we lack general information of the underlying values
concerning traditional rural biotopes. Furthermore, many biological factors related
to managing these sites are not clear. How should the past and present spatial
connectivity of pasture habitat patches be considered? How deep is the
extinction dept of the variety of specialist species of these habitats?
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| Wooded pastures are important habitats for a variety of species. In Finland, they are the most common – and perhaps the most versatile – traditional rural biotope type. ( K. Raatikainen) |
Answering these questions, and
applying the answers, need a holistic approach. The aim of my research is to
examine the management of traditional rural biotopes in Finland
Kaisa Raatikainen
Project Manager
Centre for Economic Development,
Transport and the Environment for Central Finland
2 comments:
Kaisa, this is an interesting but perhaps depressing picture of the decline of traditional cultural management, and the inevitable loss of biodiversity associated with that old way of life. But that is the story of wood pastures everywhere in Europe it seems. In 2002 I visited wooded pastures in central Sweden around Klovsjo with a group looking at examples of Biocultural Heritage in Sweden and France. The tradition at Klovsjo was described and a book has been written about it by Lars Kardell and Mats Olofsson. But the feeling was that the old ways were dying, mainly because young people were not prepared to continue the hard work and poor financial rewards. So the visit was informative but rather sad. These habitats have developed over many centuries, but their biological values can be lost very quickly, within decades, and the loss of traditional knowledge is to me the most worrying aspect (as also discussed in the Hungarian article). Certainly the economic and social aspects must be given equal weight in any studies alongside the ecological and cultural history aspects. Peter Quelch
Thank you, Peter, for your comment. It really seems that the loss of traditionally managed rural landscapes covers the whole Europe. This is worrying, and the change has been fast. Reading this blog gives a good review to the current situation. But some hope is in the air: we have a new generation of farmers who are interested in managing valuable sites. It is very important to create a link between these people and the experts who study biological background factors affecting traditional rural biotopes. I think it is possible to manage the best sites with high quality if we work together with local farmers and landowners. Also, the EU subsidy system offers some economical support for site management, and we should be very active in developing subsidy policies. After all, managing is costly and money is attractive.
Kaisa Raatikainen
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