Tuesday morning (28.10) we picked up our partners by bus in Joensuu from Green Star Hotel. It was announced at once that participants arrived to Forestry Capital of Europe. While moving on the bus long story of history of development forestry sector has been told. Before passing by Ilomantsi the small historical background has been given. Thus, looking back into 1950-80s the population was relatively high in the areas. However, recent trends of urbanization (mostly because of job) affect in constant decline of population. 20% of the forest land in Ilomantsi is owned by private company (mainly Tornator), 20% by state forest company (Metsähallitus) and the rest is private landowners. They are about 3500 private forest owners and about 30% of them do not live in Ilomantsi area anymore. On the way to Mekrijärvi Research Station the wide use of peat mainly for combustion in mixture with other substances (wood residues, reed canary grass) was explained.
Kick-off excursion at Mekrijärvi research
station was lead by local expert. He explained the current research activities with
pellets, energy wood and different plants (in greenhouses). In greenhouse laboratory
they have 16 individual chambers where plants grow under certain growth
conditions with possibilities to influence on level of CO2, UV
light, moisture, temperature etc. Another interesting experiment is constant
measurement of water content in logs for optimizing seasonality of energy wood
transportation. Samples are constantly weighted to measure the optimal timing
of transportation.
In the afternoon
we had an excursion to Patvinsuo National Park which represents a huge mire
lands. The last clearcut within National Park took place in 1950s, today they
make controlled nature burnings to establish new biodiversity. The evening was spent in the Traditional Karelian
Restaurant Parpenpirtti – fish, root vegetables, karelian pirogi and vatruskas.
Afterwards we had a special offer from the hosts – smoke sauna at Mekrijärvi
Research Station.
On Wednesday morning introduction in morning session started with
welcoming words from Peter Bessau from International Model Forest Network
stating that Ilomantsi Model Forest was officially accepted and recognized.
Then Mr. Alpo Hassinen gave a life performance on how to use UAV (unmanned
aerial vehicles) for small-scale inventory and recording the state of
landscapes in different time span. Unfortunately it was too windy for an
outdoor demonstration, but Alpo showed us his planes and photos with great
enthusiasm. His first plane was acquired from Canada, but it was too expensive
to crash so he started to build his own planes from cheaper materials. These
are also very easy to repair, as Alpo said “You fly one day they you repair for
three days” because the landing places are often full of stumps, rocks and
trees.
The plane can be used for many experiments; one
was to calculate how much reed canary grass was growing around the lakes, to
know where to harvest it in the winter.
Then we went to see the most eastern point of
Finland – the Finnish-Russian border. To show us how a very simple thing can
become a tourist attraction. We were standing less than hundred meters to
Russian border, but no passport was asked or checked.
After this
we spent the rest of the day at Erä-Eero’s place starting with small snack and
then straight to watching cabins where for three hours were waiting for a
wolverine to come, but they did not show up. Our guide (Esa Muikku) told us
this was the first time this year no wolverine passed by. As reward after that
we had a warm sauna afterwards and then a nice Finnish dinner in a joyful
atmosphere.
After that we had a lunch at Erä-Mantsi in Ilomantsi. Heikki Lyhykäinen is a local entrepreneur who runs the business on nature guiding in Ilomantsi area. After this we had an excursion to Petkeljärvi National park with a presentation by Finnish State Forest Service. Mr. Arto Kammonen was kind enough to show the place. This is park about 7 sq. km with old pine, some remains from the winter war and walking paths. Finnish State Forest Service works with both timber production and nature conservation, they own about 35% of Finland forest.
