Objective
Building on earlier pilot work, the LIFE project will take over the role once played by farmers. It provides the investment funds to clear overgrown land and restore the grassland habitats, after which on-going recurring management can be assured by the beneficiary itself. Some recurring management to increase the diversity and quality of existing grasslands will also be carried out already under the LIFE project. Grazing is an essential management tool, and LIFE will be used to buy a boat in which livestock can be ferried from one management site to another among the many islands. The project will draw up grassland management plans and recommendations and try to persuade landowners and the remaining farmers adjoining the park to apply them. The experience gained will be published in a book on grassland restoration for conservation professionals. Finally, the national park itself will be expanded by adding nine sites containing priority habitats to be purchased through LIFE.
The local public and the increasing number of visitors are also targeted by the project through building better nature trails and renewing the information points.
The Archipelago National Park, covering some of the 8,400 islands in the Baltic off the southwest tip of Finland, is regarded as the most significant site for the protection of seminatural pastures and grasslands in the country. The LIFE project site extends over 36 separate islands and although its area is small, it shelters a very rich and varied mosaic of habitat types: wooded pastures, coastal lagoons and shore meadows, dry and hay meadows, dunes, residual alluvial forests etc., harbouring altogether 33 biotopes of Community interest, out of which 12 are included in the priority habitat types listed under Annex I of the Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC. Numerous fauna and flora species inhabit the seminatural grasslands and pastures.
Only a continuous management can secure these valuable habitats from a rapid deterioration through ecological succession into shrubbery and dense forest which would threaten the survival of the rare beetles, butterflies and other insects, the corncrake (Crex crex), vascular plants and mushrooms, lichens and mosses which depend on them. It is estimated that half of the 130 Finnish red-listed species found in the Archipelago National Park are restricted to these seminatural biotopes. However, as traditional livestock farming is abandoned, the grasslands are no longer being managed.
Topic(s)
Data not availableCall for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
21710 Korppoo
Finland