Nature values trading in North Karelia to restore biodiversity of mires

The nature values market supports the work to promote nature management in forests and offers an alternative way to seek funding that used to be mainly based on central government sources. In North Karelia, nature values trading is piloted in a few mire restoration sites.

“Through the nature values market, private forest owners, whose interests are supervised by the forest management associations, can obtain financial return that is not only based on the price of logs or pulpwood. It is important that forest management associations assist forest owners in selling nature values from their forests and offer these to potential buyers,” says Panu Kukkonen, Senior Specialist of the North Karelia Forest Management Association.

First steps in nature values trading

The nature values market is taking its first steps nationwide. Work to develop nature values trading is also done by the Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners MTK. Many forest owners have multiple objectives, and for the majority of them biodiversity is a high priority as well. MTK also considers that in future the need for services related to this will be growing among the companies.

“New tools will be needed to halt the loss of biodiversity, and now the market economy offers good opportunities for this,” says MTK’s Environmental Advisor Heli Siitari.

“The pilot process in North Karelia is now under way and the phases related to it have been developed. Our aim is to create a process that is as streamlined as possible for the sale of nature values through the whole chain of operations of the forest management associations. A number of other forest management associations also participate in the pilot,” Siitari says. 

The process is new, which is why more work has been needed for many issues than in the more established services. These include contract templates, terms of delivery, levels of compensations and organisation of subcontracting. Identification of nature values and measures related to forest appraisal are already included in the regular tasks of forest management associations.

Forest management associations want to keep up with times

The primary target of forest management associations as they participate in developing nature values market is to offer even more diverse services to their members.
“Understanding of forests and ecosystems keeps growing, which is why it is important to keep up with the times and new trends to serve forest owners even better. Good results cannot be achieved if we just stick to supporting wood production, for example,” Kukkonen says.

According to him, the first nature value sales in North Karelia aim to increase biodiversity of mire nature, improve water protection and, in the long term, halt the decomposition of peat and get the growth of new peat started.

Halting biodiversity loss requires commitment from society as a whole. In our series of articles, we present the nature values market and cases where ecological compensation has been used from the perspective of different stakeholders. Through ecological compensation, adverse impacts on biodiversity caused by human action in a certain area are offset by enhancing biodiversity in another area. Nature values market is a new and evolving means for channelling private funding to the work for biodiversity.

Text: Sirpa Mustonen
Photo: Jarno Artika / PKO