"The stage in Estonian nature conservation where the only possibility for nature conservation and management was to organise the field with national orders and restrictions and establishment of strict conservation areas, will soon be history. By now, almost one fifth of the territory of Estonia is covered with various conservation areas and instead of their additional establishment, we will concentrate on ensuring that these areas would be well managed. The attitude that nature should be protected not only at the conservation areas, but outside their borders as well, should become essential," explained the Minister of the Environment Keit Pentus. "Our nature is very rich, including well preserved raised bogs, primeval forests, coastal and wooded meadows with their characteristic species, which have become very rare elsewhere," she added. According to the words of the Minister, contemporary nature conservation is concentrating in addition to traditional nature management also on promotion of environmental awareness of people and sustainable use of natural resources. "The environmental education has an essential role here, because we can manage and protect nature better if we are familiar it," Pentus said. The completed Nature Conservation Development Plan is a strategic document, the objective of which is to ensure systematic planning of national nature conservation activities, balanced use of natural resources and preservation of species and habitats. The Nature Conservation Development Plan includes classical nature conservation as well as other fields related to protection of nature. The Development Plan will provide input for the planning of financial resources and will form the basis for improvement of the National Environmental Action Plan of Estonia 2007-2013. Some examples of the activities of the Development Plan are raising of environmental awareness of the people through environmental education on all levels of education development of nature conservation research, organisation of sustainable environmental tourism, ensuring of favourable condition of species and habitats and versatility of natural landscapes, organisation of the protection of natural objects, compensation of nature conservation restrictions and supporting of nature conservation activities. Essential activities in the field of use of natural resources are, for example, taking account of the value of the services of ecosystem in use of the environment, mitigation of the versatility reducing impact of mining and management of renewable energy sources, ensuring of biological safety and mitigation of negative transport impact. For example, by 2020, the area of managed cultural biotopes such as alvars and coastal and wooded meadows would be increased by almost twice. The cultural communities developed with the human impact are extremely valuable for preservation of the diversity of species and landscape. Recovery of swamps and raised bogs is also planned to be increased to up to 10,000 hectares. The measures facilitating the improvement of environmental education and awareness would be a broader use of IT solutions (such as practical i-applications for smartphones) and increase of the possibilities of outdoor studies. |
