#saaristo

Essek and Baela are visiting Kustavin Savipaja.

We are just waiting for our vappumunkki :3

Came back from a meadow restoration camp with Luontoliitto! It was quite fun although physically exhausting. What made it great were the people there, the "yhteisöllisyys."

This was my second year here reaping and I can't wait to come back in a few months to burn the biomass we got out from the meadows. Besides forest mapping and protesting I feel that restorting natural sites in camp conditions with a very funny n awesome group has been my number one way of doing environmental activism. Nothing beats a little "vacation" to the islands and seeing the immediate aftermath of everyone's physical work - the meadow was actually doing a lot better this year, so I got to see long term results from last year and feel good about it as well!!

I also got to yap a little about the Finnish gods and pagan summer celebrations 😼🙏

...

This place is an island named Getskär in the south-west coast of Finland. It's one of the places that are apart of the restoration and management of meadows in Finland, Sweden and Estonia LITENAT/FW/7067 project, and it has a looong history of human activity/settlement, possibly even longer than the first written mention in the 1600s suggests. This means that the meadow was reaped continously for a long time until recently. Today the goal is to remove most of the biomass aka nutrients from these meadows so that they can return to an optimal growth environment for certain species that rely on these endangered habitats. I learned the names of two endangered species that are slowly spreading on the island thanks to our hardwork!

Keltamatara (Galium verum)

Niittyräpelö (Briza media)

The problem is that the meadow has been conquered by Hietakastikka (Calamagrostis epigejos), a long and good competitor grass. That's what we wanna reap away, and I really wish I took some pictures of the tiny patch that represents what we want the meadow to look like... maybe next year. :)

I also really wish I took pictures of the texts that explained the history....

Essek has an umbrella!