On June, 11, 2020, the first Finnish LIFE OrgBalt stakeholder meeting – national workshop “Work for Climate on Organic Soils at Both Sides of the Gulf of Finland” was run as a webinar and gathered wide range of the project stakeholders in Finland. The workshop was organized by Natural Resources Center LUKE, partner in LIFE OrgBalt project.
The workshop participants were introduced to LIFE OrgBalt project – it’s scope, main objectives and activities in Finland; Functional land management approach for climate change mitigation; Planned climate change mitigation targeted management practices on organic soils in LIFE OrgBalt project demo-sites; climate-wise forestry – how continuous cover forestry could mitigate GHG emissions at drained peatlands.
Agenda and presentations of the national workshop in Finland can be found HERE.
Researchers and representatives of non-governmental organizations working on forest, agriculture and environment sector in Finland were the key-participants. The workshop gathered representatives of Finnish Peatland Society, Life Carbon Farming Scheme project, Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, University of Eastern Finland, Finnish Forest Centre, Bioenergy Association of Finland, University of Helsinki and other organizations.
Finland has decades long experience in development greenhouse gas (GHG) monitoring methods and currently has the largest GHG data collection on organic soils, especially on peatlands drained for forestry and agriculture in boreal climate zone.
Although relatively good understanding on GHG balances on various organic soil productivity types exists already, work relating management techniques and GHG fluxes is still in quite early phase. Field work focus in LIFE OrgBalt in Finland is in finding ways to improve soil C and GHG balances attainable by forest management techniques, e.g. clear felling, partial harvesting, drainage management. Research at field in Finland adds on previously collated data.
“Cooperation with other related research projects ensure continuity in data collection as we work in forest systems that may need up to a century to grow at northmost conditions. Ambitious goal in LIFE OrgBalt in Baltic region is to include several soil types, several land uses and management types into one project, and this forms an exciting opportunity to collect, compare and work on original data, share experiences, disseminate project outcomes, and learn together more on soil carbon balance and GHG emissions in prominent organic soil areas encircling the Baltic Sea,” says Jyrki Jauhiainen, LUKE Researcher, Doctor, LIFE OrgBalt expert.
Within LIFE OrgBalt project in total 10 national workshops are planned in partner countries – Germany, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania (two workshops in each country). The workshops are planned to gather stakeholders – governmental institutions, research organizations, farmers etc. in order to inform about the LIFE OrgBalt project, planned activities and results. The first workshop in each country will be held in the first half of 2020. Taking into consideration the restrictions introduced internationally due to 2019-nCoV outbreak the first LIFE OrgBalt workshops will be held in webinar format.
The LIFE OrgBalt project’s “Demonstration of climate change mitigation potential of nutrients rich organic soils in Baltic States and Finland” (LIFE18 CCM/LV/001158) main objectives are measurements of greenhouse gas emissions from managed nutrients rich organic soils on agricultural and forest lands in a Cool Temperate Moist climate zone and elaboration of emission factors as well as research and implementation of climate change mitigation measures.
LIFE OrgBalt is being implemented by Latvian State Forest Research Institute “Silava” in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Latvia, Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, University of Tartu (Estonia), Natural Resources Institute Finland LUKE, Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Michael Succow Foundation (Germany) and Association Baltic Coasts (Latvia) from 2019 to 2023 and has received funding from the LIFE Programme of the European Union and the State Regional Development Agency of Latvia. More information www.orgbalt.eu
The information reflects only the LIFE OrgBalt project beneficiaries’ view and the European Commission’s Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
