LIFE in Lapland

The LIFE Active Blanket Bogs in Wales project has just returned from a visit to Lapland, Finland where they visited two LIFE funded aapa mire restoration projects. The project was represented by Mike, Fiona and Jude who were hosted by Jouni Rauhala from the Lapland Regional Environment Centre.

The Finnish aapa mires are vast areas of peat land that gain their moisture from ground water flow. They are vast areas, which, although unnoticeable, will have some degree of slope causing the water to flow through the peat like a river. This creates pools, hummocks and sphagnum lawns often in a non-random pattern, corresponding with the direction of water flow.

The first site visit was to Pelkosenniemi, a site at the centre of the “Promotion of public awareness and protection of aapa mires in Lapland” (LIFE06 NAT/FIN/000128) LIFE Project. The Kiliaapa mire is reached by a 3km boardwalk. On its edge is a bird tower from which much of the mire’s 5km² can be seen. Kiliaapa mire is the 10^th largest aapa mire in Finland. Much of this site has been purchased from local people as part of the project to protect the mire from drainage.

The second visit was to the Tunturi aapa mire within the Pyha-Luosto National Park. At this site the project has blocked around 10km of forestry grips by reinserting the previously dug out peat. This worked was carried out in 2008 and the bare peat is now being recolonised by vegetation.

The final visit was to the Teuravuoma-Kivijarvenvuoma aapa mire, covering an area of 6,000 hectares (ha) it is the largest aapa mire in Finland. This was the site of a previous LIFE Project, which finished in 2006 (LIFE00 NAT/FIN/007060), where 150 ha were restored through grip blocking. A 14km walk, all on boardwalk, across this site gave an incredible insight into the huge scale of the project areas.

The team also had the opportunity to follow a nature trail within the Pyha-Luosto National Park, which traveled through areas of mixed pine forest, aapa mire and the largest ravine in Finland. From a bird tower a vast area of aapa mire could be seen. Sphagnum lawns, cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus), bogbean (Menyanthes trifoliate), marsh tea (Ledum palustre) and bog-rosemary (Andromeda polifolia) stretched as far as the eye could see. Bird life was also abundant, common cranes (Grus Grus), redpoll (Carduelis flammea), yellow wagtail (Motacilla flava), greenshank (Tringa nebularia) and spotted flycatcher (Muscicapa striata) were all seen.It was particularly interesting to see how both projects have done a large amount of interpretation signage along the boardwalks. Many of the signs have incorporated children’s drawings, something which we are now interested in developing as part of this project. In order to remove the risk of accidental fires, the project, with support from additional funding, has built areas for safe recreational fires.

The visit was extremely informative, giving the team an excellent insight into the challenges and issues associated with protecting peat mires in Lapland, many of which were similar to those we face in Wales.