Land is Life, Snowchange and the Landscape Rewilding Programme partnered to secure Kivisuo, a biodiversity hotspot of 1,517 acres – it is an intact boreal peatland / marshmire, as well as a major carbon sink in the Sub-Arctic in Finland.
Since 2018, Land is Life and Snowchange have joined forces to support Indigenous and community-led conservation work in the Arctic. Based in Finland, Snowchange runs the Landscape Rewilding Programme, an initiative that empowers local Indigenous communities working to secure key locations, ecosystems and habitats for restoration, rewilding and conservation. Supporting communities is a matter of essence, so that their land rights and equitable conservation management are fully met according to their needs.
Kivisuo (“Marshmire of Stones”) is a biodiversity hotspot of 1,517 acres located in the villages of Muhos and Utajärvi in Sub-Arctic Finland. The Kivisuo site is part of a 20 kilometer-wide string of boreal peatlands which is also a major carbon storage ( accumulated since the last Ice Age), and a natural carbon sink. This means that Kivisuo actively stores carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thus alleviating climate change which is at this moment altering the Arctic in profound ways.
Whilst Kivisuo is important internationally for climate and carbon, it will not solve all the issues of climate change in the Arctic alone. However, this is a major step forward for local indigenous communities who are dependent on the site for their well-being, traditional knowledge and traditional land uses, such as hunting, berry picking and water protection. Kivisuo is also considered of European-level importance, due to the biodiversity it contains, including breeding habitats of rare waders and Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus).
”Kivisuo is a symbol of the change we need in the north, to secure intact habitats for communities and to fulfil their rights in conservation, to rewild and restore past damages and to increase natural carbon sinks wherever we can so that both humans and non-humans will have a fighting chance for their future. Such places also contain all the knowledge and natural solutions to address the crisis of our times”, says Tero Mustonen, Snowchange’s current President and Land is Life Arctic Coordinator.
He continues: “I wish to thank Land is Life and Roland Göhde in Germany for their unwavering actions during the extremely complex process of securing Kivisuo for safety. The role of Land is Life was critical and represents the important role of supporting Indigenous-led action for the Planet, when the need arises”.