TREASURES
OF CULTURE AND PRIMEVAL FOREST
Kalevala
national park being planned in Viena Karelia
by
Riitta Nykänen
Introduction
Thousand
square kilometres of untouched taiga In Viena Karelia, in Kostomuksha
and Kalevala regions there exists something that cannot be found hardly
anywhere else in Europe: Middle and northern boreal forest as such
large areas, that the natural life cycle with all its dynamics can
work uninterrupted. Fire and time renew the forest creating and preserving
unique biodiversity.
All untouched
natural forests in Viena Karelia are not old primeval forest. While
walking in the forest one goes through the multilayered history of
it. High on a hillside the forest can consist of young pine as a result
of a fire occurred maybe 50-60 years ago. On the way down one passes
a forest where spruce has taken over and old huge pines have fallen
down.
Biodiversity
is at its highest in the spruce and aspen forests of creek ravines
and other depressions. They may have remained untouched by fire for
several hundreds of years. Rottening wood lays around often in several
layers.
In Viena
one can also enjoy walking in old pine forests full of light and giant
live and dry trees that have started their life even 700-800 years
ago. Forest fires, that unevitably some time reach each hill, do not
kill all trees, but the strongest ones with thick bark remain alive
through several fires. Fire renews forest gradually and so maintains
biodiversity.
It has
been claimed that clearcut works like forest fire. This idea can not
be approved, since fire hardly ever kills all bigger trees or even
great majority of them.
The national
park that is being planned would protect about 90.000 hectars of unique
natural forests, but that is not all.
Villages
like poems
Viena
Karelia and its villages are known to be the birth site of Finnish
national epos, Kalevala. Karelian tradition is stong and it still
echoes throuhg every day life. Todays Karelian villages could each
inspire several different poems. Contrasts are great, the reality
is stronly present, and the ongoing change means destroyed hopes and
fallen plans for many people. In the village of Voknavolok, which
is located at the edge of planned Kalevela-park, there are about a
hundred unemployed people, whose jobs disappeared, when the state
farm, a sovhose, was gradually run down.
The production
on foodstuffs has been moved to Kostomuksha, where the consumers are.
Vuokkiniemi used to supply the mining and industrial city with milk,
potatoes and other farming products. Now, when Russian economy is
badly disordered, the own forest industry has decresed greatly and
also cuttings made by local companies have almost totally been stopped.
20-30 of these hundred unemployed persons have before earned their
living in forestry. Now the village people live of small pensions
and unemployment fees. They grow potatoes, keep a cow or two, fish
and collect berries and mushrooms. Young viewless generation has grabbed
a hold to a vodka bottle. One of the grandmothers, that do a great
job by holding on to the practices of everyday life, said when she
was asked whether her son wants to go on keeping the house after his
parents: "Dont know if he is keeping a bottle or a house."
Several
small villages of Viena Karelia were liquidiced during sixties and
seventies. Schools, stores, clubs and libraries were closed down and
electricity was cut off. People were paid for moving their houses
to bigger villages. Three sites of this kind of small villages are
located within the planned national park. Two of them are again inhabited
by some families, who have been living in those villages before. They
have been given some land and they have started small scale farming.
Such a small farm needs a lot of work and it is difficult to bring
products to market, since villages are so remote. Still life is awakening
in them.
Kuhmon
kulttuurikornitsa -foundation from Finland and Arhippa Perttunen -foundation
from Russian Karelia, have for several years run a program to revitalise
Viena's poem villages. Several different organisations have also joined
the effort. The parts of the program live quite much a life of their
own. The program consists of bringing electricity into villages, rebuilding
of roads, restauration of culturally and historiacally important sites,
building of a school, a church and a few orthodox chapels together
with co-operation in cultural and educational field. As a result of
the program the villages have been accepted to the UNESCO Decade of
Culture List. They are also applying to become nominated a UNESCO
Cultural World Heritage site.
Peoples
forest
Kalevala-park
will be mostly located in the area of former municipal of Voknavolok.
During the twenties and thirties of this century there were about
5000 inhabitants in the area. Still the untouched forests surround
the them. Only during the last years the cuttings have started to
get close to the villages. Now there are less than 700 inhabitants
in the area. Very strong local opinion is against the clearcuttings.
People are afraid for their forests, which are so valuable to them.
They also find clearcut landscape to be oppressing. "I went to
a cut forest, becouse there was plenty of berries, but I felt bad.
I came back."
Traditional
use of forest has always meant very selective cutting of wood. Many
kinds of wood, not only even aged straight pine trunks were useful.
Houses
were built of "full grown trees, that were cut in february, so
that there is a lot of tar in the wood, so that it lasts long."
as a professional forestry man told. A fine and light rowing boat
was built of one bruce tree. Tweld a keel were sawn of it. What was
left, was enough for a coffin (grobu). The boat is finished with tar,
that penetrates the wood and protects it: "The tar is taken out
of the wood, and that's where it belongs to."
People
spend much time in their forests. They collect berries and mushrooms,
go fishing and hunt a little. A teacher of the school in Voknavolok
says" Nobody can live here without going to the forests."
Even though people use their forests a lot, they seem very untouched
even near the villages. Paths can only be found close to settlements
ans along some waterways. Forest has been a source of living and a
shelter for Karelian people. It has not been considered as a source
of money, but as a valuable tool or some other useful owning, which
must be taken care of well. Wood has been only one, though valuable,
gift of the forest.
People
of the area would like to be able to live of and in their forests.
They see a possibility to use the sources of land and forest sustainably
and raffinate the products on their area. That would bring work. They
would appreciate education and maybe cheap loans to get started, but
they do not want "Finnish people to come here and do our job."
The traditional processing of wood and skills related to it are still
appreciated. Techniques have changed some along the years since it
has been necessary to be able to do everything yourself.
Pulp
wood and timber to Finland
Most
present cuttings in the area are being carried out by Finnish companies.
They use Finnish machinery and employ Finnish workers. Cuttings are
clearcuts and form, like usually in Russia, large sharp edged areas.
Wood
is mainly bought by Finnish wood processing companies, that pay at
the border a price, that is only somewhat cheaper than the price paid
of Finnish wood at the gate of a factory. Most of the wood is pulp
wood, a smaller part is used at sawmills.
One that
appreciates forest finds this way of using Karelian wood to be waisting.
Old, slowly grown, hard pine wood ends up to be cooked to pulp and
made to paper, that inevitably ends up rottening somewhere and adding
carbon dioxide into the air. The people of the area do not benefit
att all of the forestry business. A great part of the price consists
of different taxes and customs fees. Still, 30-60% of the price, varying
according to the fraction of wood, disappears to unknown destinations.
It is not expences of using machinery, it is not paid to the employees
and nobody often pays profit tax of it. This kind of trade promotes
unfair affairs.
Even
the amount of money that is is claimed to be used to improve local
structures in various joined projects varies much and some "commonly
approvable" projects seem to benefit somebody else than local
people. This kind of structures of trade are familiar to us from the
times of colonialism, which seem actually be going on. It is difficult
to control the trade, because the companies claim to have a right
to keep their business secret. There are many things in Finnish wood
trade in Karelia that are questionable on social, ecologiacal and
moral grounds.
Etno
- ecological area
The idea,
area and form of the Kalevala-park have been changing during the years.
The borders, the Karelian Research Center of the Russian Academy of
Sciences is suggesting now, form an area that includes some 90.000
hectars of almost intact natural forests. This area forms also the
base of ongoing planning of Kalevala-park. The park is also planned
to include the areas of the poem villages and the forests in their
immediate surroundings. This would bring in also forests that have
been traditionally used by the people living in the villages under
protection. Those forests are located for example along the shores
of Lake Yla-Kuitti.
The area
of the park would be divided into three zones. The forests that have
been untouched since ice age would be left totally in peace. Firewood
and some wood for villages use could be cut in the zone around the
small villages. It would also be possible to form a third zone, where
the forests are cut with traditional methods to supply local small
scale wood industry.
This
industry would produce carpentry wares and wooden buildings. The park
plan can partly be based on WWF's inventory on natural values made
in 1995 and the inventory of forest history and cultural connections
made in 1996. Plan should also include a framework for developing
sustainable forestry and protecting culturally important sites and
areas. An important part would also be to find ways to save the Karelian
forest culture by means of education and revitalising the local traditional
forest uses.
A pearl
of the Green Belt
The Green
Belt means a chain of nature protection areas with different statuses.
This belt is located on both sides of the border between Finland and
Karelia, district of Leningrad, district of Murmansk and Norway. There
will be an application to include the whole Green Belt on the UNESCO
World Heritage list. The Green Belt would protect a set of natural
forest areas from hemiboreal zone to forest tundra.
The task
of forming the Green Belt and getting to it a status of Natural World
Heritage site has been started by Russian Ministry of Environment
and Greenpeace Russia. Naturschutszbund Deutschland joined in quite
early. Finnish Ministy of Environment is also taking part in the process
as do several non-governmental organisations. UNESCO-committees of
Finland and Russia have discussed the matter, also.
Kalevala-park
is an essential part of the Green Belt. The history and and the living
forest culture of the area make it especially important.
Genuine
local culture can be ecologically sustainable
Cooking
forests into pulp and paper, that are products with a short life span,
is ecologically unsustainable everywhere. Especially pointless it
is in Viena Karelia, where there still exist remains of a genuine
forest based culture that can offer people good life without selling
roundwood abroad. A sustainable lifestyle based on careful use of
local resources is suitable for a model for survival and still possible
to be reached in Viena Karelia.
There
are only few technological changes and small investments needed to
reach a functioning and viable social, economical and cultural life
in these communities. Very little is actually needed from abroad,
actually the less, the better. The ancient Karelian culture that had
almost a spiritual connection with forest has almost disappeared.
If the seed of it is to grow into a new genuine culture, it needs
peace. A Karelian culture is to be built by people that live there,
in Karelian forests, that give people shelter and bread.
|