Biotopes
Traditional rural landscapes and biotopes are areas that have occured due to diffrent agricultural activites of humans. Meadows and pastures are such areas and in connection with them there are also often different kind of traditional land use buildings. The cultural nature environments are a result of the old land use methodes used in agriculture up til the end of 1800. Cattle was mostly kept on meadows and in forests, first after the hay had been removed they were let on real pastures. In 1880 there were 810 000 hectares of fields but more than the double amount of meadows. These traditional land use methods were kept uptil the 1950's and 1960's but after that they have been refused. Intensified agricultural methos replaced the old agricultural methods. Grassed forests were still a lot left in 1960's, about 1,4 milloin hectares. Since then, they have been decreasing. Today there are only about 5000 hectares left. Still, this is the largest amount of any kind of traditional rural biotop left in Finland. All other kind of areas are smaller.
South-West Finland is the area with largest amount of hectars of traditional rural landscapes and biotpes. In the South-Western archipelage one can still find some of the very rare meadows with leaf trees, oak trees and some rare heatherns. In Northern Finland there are large coast meadows and in Lapland one can find bog and flooded meadows. In Central Finland there are very few meadows left. The most sad thing is that only a smaller amont of the landscapes are being used in a traditional way. Cattle get extra fodder and the areas are being over-loded with nutrients. In other places there are too few cattle and the areas are growing into forest again.
Traditional rural biotopes in Finland can be seen from the talbe below:
Mustiala wooded meadow under restoaration.
Lenholmen oak meadow.
Jungfruskär costal meadow, Turku archipelago.