[Music] the Evo area in hamina is beautiful and unique with its many old growth forests clear lakes and important wildlife habitats its importance in conservation and protection has been debated for many decades most recently in 2021 when it was proposed to become finland's first scientific National Park this park would be an intersection between research and conservation and would bring International attention to the Evo area however there are differing opinions on the importance and following
effects of this change and we wanted to find out how the proposition is viewed by the locals the researchers the Educators the conservationists and all the other people who use this land every area is the vastest forest area in southern Finland and to protect species any species if you're discussing about plants or animals or whatever they all are they are all are connected and to protect a species you need a vast area of land for for uh e [Music] uh the purpose of this National Park is not only
nature preservation but also scientific research the Evo area is already being used in many research projects and the protection of this area will only increase the possibilities of studying the ecosystem in Eva one of the issues in the ongoing research projects in the area is that since the forests are being used for commercial purposes there is no way to conduct long-term studies as the forests are undergoing constant change I love this idea of science national park because I now I see the di
fference that in school you study from the books and then you have research and there's like nothing in between so you don't really get the idea what is to do research and what is really going on in the nature when you read books in the school so I wanted to have this area where you could actually that Ordinary People and students and everybody could come and learn how the nature is really changing and how biodiversity and other things like that are are important on a world scale Evo is quite un
ique for the amount of work that's going on there but it's just not coordinated and it could be so much better uh so that's one reason uh another reason say right from the beginning uh um we um made sure that the teaching Forest uh in in EO would not be included in any of the plans for the national park and uh from that perspective then there would be a nice sort of contrast that we could have research forestry based research within the teaching forest and then right next to it an area of land w
here there's uh greater levels of protection uh and and so that type of in a way experimental setup that was quite nice and I I think a lot of people certainly the scientists who are think think about this they were quite excited about that that we would have this sort of a uh officially recognized area that has protection and Forestry and those two things can exist side by side forestry education has been at a already for more than 160 years so there is a lot of docent documented history about
Forestry at this area already before Elation started and so it's kind of a cultural inheritage also what we are keeping on and in the National in the science National Park we could also have um besides ecological ecological research topics we could also have a lot of benefit from documented forestry history um I think that uh to to study for example the the carbon carbon effects the carbon sinks and carbon sources the effects of uh of forest Management on those in protected area where we have th
e documented forestry history and then again in a in a educational Forest where we are still keeping keeping on with the with the industrial Forest management so comp comparison of those would provide a lot of lot of um information for example for decision making in forestry in Finland and also in the European level I think another consideration of The Proposal is how the scientific National Park would affect the economy of Evo and the surrounding areas the park would bring national attention an
d would be frequented by many hikers campers and tourists this is often the trade off at the say at the national level when these things are talked about is that um we'll protect land but we'll make sure that the the land that's protected can still be a source of income for people in a different way of course than what it might have been previously uh it's also say the people in the city of ham L who uh were supporting the project also saw that this is a way that uh we can attract people to the
region and so when people are thinking about where I'm going to move to then they'll think h l seems like a nice place and yeah there's that nice National Park north of there and so that that was uh one of the motivations for certainly the people in the city of H Lina that uh they felt that they would really like to see that sort of uh reputation built in this area that that there's uh very nice natural areas and then a vibrant City Evo currently is not just a place for hiking and camping but al
so hosts the country's oldest school of Forestry though the scientific National Park is an asset for Education the practice of civil culture for educational purposes may be seen in a negative light next to a national park if we'd have a national park almost surrounding our educational Forest what would be the effects like for example would would there be more um interest towards uh the actions we are doing in the educational forest and will that somehow hinder the education I feel that we have a
moral obligation to provide future professionals all the possible ways of Forestry in Finland and we can't cut that down so we have to show the effects of clear Cuts we have to show the effects of of for example for of game Management in the forest so we need different kind of forests for Education not only the the national park or protected areas there are also other worries that mainly concern the land owners living on the borders of the proposed National Park since the protected area should
not be disturbed from the outside land owners are concerned about the implementation of buffer zones between protected and commercial land the buffer zones may have an impact on their ability to practice forestry and this in turn will affect the profitability of their forests for fore for there's a culture of hunting in the Evo area that dates back centuries another worry of the locals is that hunting in the new National Park would be restricted if not completely banned the worry is that Rising
deer and moose populations would spread to the surrounding forests and harm young seedling stands in the neighboring commercial forests for for there is also a concern about the spread of bark beetles which are attracted to Deadwood which would be abundant in a protected area the future of the Evo scientific National Park is still unsure the differing opinions on the development of the Evo area are complicating the final decision in the Park's future for for [Music]
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