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Profile

Goals/Priority Areas

Protection of Forests

Protection of Freshwater Ecosystems

Landscape Management

Protection of the Baltic Sea

Protection of the Arctic Environment

WWF-Finland: In the International Arena

What You Can Do


 
freshwater ecosystems


view of coastline Water is an essential of existence. Despite this, clean water is becoming a rarity in Finland. Natural, pristine shores are disappearing quickly with over 40 per cent of the Finnish coastline already built up. The condition of the country's lakes is not much better. Eutrophication and pollution are threatening many of Finland's hundreds of lakes. And intensive forest management is having an adverse effect on freshwater ecosystems like brooks and ponds.

Facing extinction in the process are the thousands of species that make their home in these water ecosystems. The water's edge has an abundance of life. While the white-backed woodpecker nests in light shoreline birch woods which have plenty of rotten snags full of larvae, the Saimaa seal builds its winter lair in snow banks on secluded lake shores. Besides, many kinds of fish spawn in the shallow shore waters. The freshwater Pearl Mussel, for one, can only survive in a river where the water is clear and the sand at the bottom, unpolluted.

With their habitat facing destruction, these endangered species may soon become extinct. It is to prevent such a catastrophe that WWF-Finland has been urging the government to pass the long overdue Shoreline Protection Act. This will help conserve the remaining natural shoreline areas of Finland.