The theme of the European Day of Parks is Youth
- the future of our parks. The visitor centres of Metsähallitus Natural Heritage
Services welcome young people to watch birds, go canoeing and do many other
things from May 20 to 25, 2009. At Seitseminen, Oulanka and Pallastunturi
visitor centres a new touring exhibition called Time Tree on the relation of
children and young people to nature and forest is opened.
One tenth of the visitors to Finland’s national parks are younger than 25.
A hobby taken on in the early years of life seems to continue and deepen as
one gets older. The youth favour more active nature-based leisure activities
than the grown-ups. Hiking, nature watching, photography and swimming are popular -
not to forget scouting. Overnight trekking and sleeping in tents or lean-to
shelters are especially the thing for the under-25-olds, but also climbing and
geocaching are popular. Berry picking and mushroom gathering does not attract
until later in life. This is not what used to be.
A forest journey through time
The 150-year-old Metsähallitus presents the life of children and young people
of different decades in the exhibition called Time Tree that will tour our
visitor centres. Nine individuals depict their life and relation to nature or
forest and take the visitor to a journey through time.
One hundred years ago also children had to take part in earning the living
and many people still lived close to the forests. After WW II the forests
provided income for many families, but in the 1970s people started to have more
time and possibilities for hiking. The role on forests started to change: next
to being a source for raw material, the forests were regarded important from the
viewpoint of biodiversity and worthy of protection.
There changes can also be seen in the stories of the persons of the Time
Tree. The children and young people of today can have a many-sided relation to
forests. One drives a harvester, the other gets inspiration to design textiles
from nature.
European Day of Parks is celebrated for the 11th time
The European Day of Parks is a tradition started by the EUROPARC Federation.
The EDP is celebrated in hundreds of national parks all over Europe on May 24 to
honour the establishment of the first nine national parks in Europe on May 24,
1909. They all are situated in Sweden.
All of Finland’s 35 national parks are managed by Metsähallitus Natural
Heritage Services. The principal tasks of national parks is to protect the
diversity of Finland’s nature. One can also enjoy and visit the national parks
to see outstanding natural features and sights, cultural history and also
Finland’s history. The parks also attract many kinds of active nature lovers in
their leisure time. Nearly 1.8 million people visited Finland’s national parks
in 2008.
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