Wetland wilderness in focus

Soomaa National Park in Estonia hosted the field trip of the international conference on “Mires and Wilderness” at the end of April bringing together 100 mire experts and students from Estonia and beyond. Topics discussed included the national mire inventory, the values of mires as green infrastructure and their ecological services for water retention and purification, biodiversity, local economies and carbon sequestration. Preserving untouched mires as wilderness also received special attention.

During the conference organised by the Estonian Fund for Nature (ELF) the first results of the national mire inventory were presented compiling information about 13,901 mires of high conservation value, covering together roughly 233,000 hectares (5.5% of the Estonia’s area). Peatlands are indeed an important feature in this Baltic country as they cover more than 22% of the country’s land area, including living mires (i.e. areas where peat is formed and accumulated), paludified grasslands (fens), peat forests and degraded peatlands. With about 70% of the original mires drained, or affected by drainage, ELF and the Estonian Environmental Board consider it important to preserve the remaining untouched mires.

Wilderness is increasingly being recognised as a valuable asset of natural areas, essentially in the context of biodiversity conservation and the development of sustainable nature tourism. Olli Ojala of the European Commission reported on the European Parliament resolution on “Wilderness in Europe” and the outcomes of the May 2009 conference in Prague, emphasizing the importance of wilderness areas and calling on action to protect such areas. As a follow-up, the European Commission is now developing specific guidance on the protection and management of wilderness areas in the context of the EU nature legislation.

For the Ramsar Convention’s perspective maintaining and restoring wetland wilderness areas wherever possible should be considered as a particularly attractive form of “wise use”. Allowing natural wetland dynamics to operate in wilderness areas provides unique experiences for visitors, as well as living space and freedom for iconic species (such as the capercaillie, bear or lynx) that attract substantial tourist and recreation interest and support related socio-economic activities. This is essential as despite the high population density and land use pressure in Europe, some areas remain relatively little influenced by man and natural processes are ongoing relatively undisturbed. They host natural processes that are vitally important to a number of species, and hence are of significant importance to achieve the EU objective of halting the loss of biodiversity. The wilderness areas are healthy and resilient ecosystems which also offer important ecosystem services for climate change mitigation and adaptation, carbon sequestration, flood mitigation, erosion control, water purification and pollution alleviation.

Conference participants explored Soomaa National Park and the Ramsar Site by canoe during the “fifth season” of the spring floods and also visited the Riisa bog on wooden trails, before enjoying local food and music at the Vanaõue guesthouse, a PAN Parks local business partner.

For more on Soomaa visit the park pages