Habitat Restoration Work at Metsähallitus
Habitat restoration is a form of nature conservation that involves various measures designed to help ecosystems return to their natural state. Restoration work usually involves a single measure which either triggers a process of naturalisation within an area of habitat, or speeds up a slow process of recovery towards a natural state.
Restoration work has been carried out in protected areas in Finland for about a decade. At first this work largely focused on pine mires, but in recent years spruce mires and forests on mineral soils have also increasingly been restored.
The areas to be restored are situated in southern Finland, the western part of the province of Oulu and the south-western part of Lapland. They are restored as a part of the Forest Biodiversity Programme for Southern Finland (METSO). Also the LIFE Nature funding of the European Union has a great role in financing the restoration in Finland. (For more information, see pages Forest Restoration and Mire restoration.)
Up to the end of year 2009, Metsähallitus has restored a total of over 30,000 hectares in protected areas on state-owned land within the METSO programme. Since year 2008, Metsähallitus also restores similar habitats on privately owned protected areas.
Metsähallitus has developed suitable measures for the restoration of mire and forest habitats in nature reserves in co-operation with the Finnish Environment Institute.
More information: