In North
Karelia, the actions of the Forest and Park Service in the Raesärkät
Natura-area in Nurmes are being questioned. The Forest and Park Service
intended to clearcut the old-growth forest area of Raesärkät, and
had not even notified the Northern Karelia Regional Environment Centre
about it.
After
widespread protests by the inhabitants of Nurmes, the FPS postponed
its plans for the following winter. The Raesärkät area is becoming
a precedent for the application of the Nature Conservation Act in
Natura-areas not protected by nature conservation legislation.
The beautiful
ridge area of Raesärkät is, with its lakes, swamps and old-growth
forests, a rare exception in the forest landscape of Nurmes. Due to
the infamous Nurmes-plan of the 1970s, the Nurmes region contains
what is probably the largest coherent forest area in Finland to be
totally ruined by logging, poisoning, plowing and draining. The FPS
logging plans in the Natura-area of Raesärkät and Rumakokangas, one
of the last natural forests left in the region, thus came as a shock
to the locals.
"This
came as a great surprise, and it is very regrettable that the FPS
has made such a decicion. They should already know the importance
of the area both to the local population and to conservation",
says Nurmes resident Kirsi Korhonen.
The FPS,
with the support of the municipal administration, is attempting to
produce a new logging plan for next spring, when the logging ban should
be lifted. The inhabitants of Nurmes are not pleased by the actions
of the FPS, as they would like to preserve the area untouched.
According
to Sirkka Hakalisto, a biologist working for the Northern Karelia
Environment Centre, the logic of the FPS is flawed. For example, the
FPS has not notified the Environment Centre about logging plans in
the Natura-area. This is illegal, even though the mode of conservation
of the area was left open in the Natura-decicion.
The Environment
Centre will presumably halt at least those of the FPS’s plans that
concern the Rumakkokongas old-growth forest in a letter to be sent
soon.
Ismo
Tuormaa
