Snowchange

18/02/2025

New over 50 hectares Rewilding Area for the Wild Forest Reindeer with Sotkamo Municipality

Snowchange and the Sotkamo Municipality have agreed on a collaboration totaling over 50 hectares of critically important habitat for the wild forest reindeer.

Today the municipality of Sotkamo in Eastern Finland and Snowchange have signed a rewilding agreement to support wild forest reindeer. The joint operational area is located in Tipasoja village. At its core is a 26,48 hectares Snowchange owned rewilding site Lahtela. Sotkamo municipality has now agreed to provide additional adjacent area for rewilding as the area is critically important for the winter pastures of the wild forest reindeer. The agreement lasts in its initial form until 2045.

Snowchange

27/01/2025

Significant investment from RELEX Foundation and Snowchange Cooperative in the biodiversity of Finnish peatlands and forests in Ilomantsi and Sápmi

Snowchange Cooperative (Osuuskunta Lumimuutos) has received an exceptionally large €600,000 grant from the RELEX Foundation for nature conservation and restoration in Eastern and Northern Finland in 2024–2026. The aim is to safeguard Finland's unique and valuable peatlands and old-growth forests amidst increasing economic pressures. Local communities and their cultural heritage are at the heart of these actions, and restoration efforts utilise traditional knowledge about nature.

“The funding from the RELEX Foundation enables us to launch new initiatives. In Ilomantsi, we can protect and restore new areas, connecting ecologically valuable habitats such as eskers, natural small water ponds and peatlands within the nationally significant Putkelanharju-Petkeljärvi area. Protecting and restoring these sites near the eastern border is particularly effective, as the recovery of species and ecosystems benefits from the proximity of Russia's old-growth forests and pristine peatlands. In Sápmi, Finnish Sámi home area, at River Siuttajoki in Inari, we can purchase key old-growth forests vital for biodiversity conservation and restore areas impacted by human activities in collaboration with our Sámi partners,” says Tero Mustonen, Chair of Snowchange Cooperative.
The funding will also support the ongoing large-scale restoration project in the Koitajoki watershed. This initiative improves the condition of valuable peatlands and enhances the water quality of Koitajoki, which has suffered for decades from forestry management actions such as peatland ditching and alteration of hydrological conditions.. By improving water quality and restoring spawning grounds, conditions for the reproduction of the critically endangered brown trout and other salmonid species will be improved. Local residents actively participate in monitoring the river's condition through Finlands first River Guardian program.
The impacts of these efforts on nature recovery, such as species and habitat restoration, water quality, and climate emissions, will be monitored using scientific methods in both Ilomantsi and Sápmi. This research will provide insights into how quickly the condition of various ecosystems can be improved through restoration and what other environmental effects arise. This information will be valuable as Finland implements the EU’s new Restoration Law, which requires member states to restore at least 20% of their land and water ecosystems by 2030.
Snowchange has successfully employed innovative methods to secure large areas for conservation and restoration, working closely and respectfully with local communities.
“The ambitious, community-driven approach of Snowchange brings much-needed hope. The intertwined crises of biodiversity loss and climate change are accelerating. We need practical examples which demonstrate how declarations can be transformed into impactful actions that improve nature at the scale required. With perseverance and creativity, even a small group of people can drive significant progress toward a better future,” says Johanna Småros, one of the founders of the RELEX Foundation.
Snowchange Cooperative is an independent, non-profit cooperative engaged in professional fishing, ecosystem restoration, and supporting traditional livelihoods worldwide. The cooperative is based in Tohmajärvi, North Karelia. www.snowchange.org, www.landscaperewilding.org, www.koitajoki.org
RELEX Foundation for a Better Future promotes diverse nature, a stable climate, and equitable societies. The foundation supports visionary organizations and initiatives working toward a better tomorrow for future generations. Although the foundation shares the same founders and a similar name with the company RELEX Solutions, it operates entirely independently.

Snowchange

07/01/2025

New Trap Camera Documentary Released

A new short documentary filmed with several trap cameras has been released. It focuses on the boreal year and seasonal changes in Linnunsuo wetland in North Kareria, Finland.

Ecologists Alicia Jarma and Antoine Scherer present a 8 minute documentary about the changes in the wildlife and ecology of a Snowchange flagship wetland, Linnunsuo in the Jukajoki catchment. Filmed over 3-4 years the film captures the comebacks of large mammals, birds, moose and many other animals in the food chain. All in all over 205 bird species have come back in 15 years as well as many other species.

Snowchange

23/12/2024

Guardian Reports on the Wild Forest Reindeer and Best for Xmas

The Guardian has a story on the Wild Forest Reindeer work.

With that we wish the best for the Xmas and 2025 to all!

Snowchange

16/12/2024

ICCA Saami Forest in Storymaps

The Sámi forest of Alttokangas, 72 ha in size, is located in the municipality of Inari and is the first ICCA (Indigenous and Community Conserved Area) in the Sámi Home Area. ICCAs are protected by Indigenous Peoples and/or local communities themselves and contain important biodiversity. ICCAs can be found across the world. Now a new StoryMaps summarizes the conservation and restoration efforts in this first-ever ICCA for the Sámi in Finland.

The Sámi forest of Alttokangas was approved as an ICCA in 2024. In 2023 Finnish NGO Snowchange Cooperative got funding from the The Swedish Postcode Lottery Foundation for a project titled: Snowchange Arctic Rewilding: Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge Rewilding of Boreal Forests in Finland.

In consultation with the local Sámi Alttokangas was chosen as one of the project sites. To-date the participating Sámi and Snowchange researchers are finding their integrated approach to conserving and restoring Alttokangas to be a meaningful new method.

In 2023 questions about the conservation status of Alttokangas emerged. What mechanism could both protect the forest and safeguard Sámi rights, land-use and their role in protecting the biodiversity of the area. The Sámi families involved want to protect Alttokangas forest in a way that includes the traditional Sámi knowledge, land-use, history and observations.

As part of the cooperation in Alttokangas ecological restoration activities have started in the forest. Here we discuss the two major activities so far – fencing off small plots of land to monitor vegetation recovery, and a prescribed burn.

In just two years the project has achieved the establishment of the first ICCA site in the Sámi Home Area, launched a comprehensive ecological inventory and monitoring practice, and kick-started the practical restoration of this important Sámi site.

We share messages from this work in a new StoryMap in Sámi, Finnish, Swedish and English to advance the understanding of Sámi-led conservation and restoration in the European North.

Snowchange

03/12/2024

Climate Breakthrough Expands the Rewilding Programme Across the Boreal From Finland into North America

Climate Breakthrough Award will make it possible to enable peatland restoration and protection on several sites from Finland to North American boreal. Climate Breakthrough Award program is uniquely designed for social change leaders to develop, launch, and scale their new initiatives with breakthrough potential to address climate change. Snowchange work will scale up in Arctic Circle area in Finland, Minnesota, Canada and Alaska on peatlands.

Over the next three years, the Climate Breakthrough program will provide a $4 million funding package to develop, launch, and scale boldest new initiatives with breakthrough potential to address climate change. All in all four teams and leaders have been chosen for 2024.

This means initiatives that could significantly reduce global annual greenhouse gas emissions, affect entire industries or regions of the world, and materially change the lives of tens of millions of people within ten years of launch.

“I’m honored to welcome Alex, Eriel, Kimiko, and Tero into the Climate Breakthrough Award program. They exemplify the kind of visionary leadership and thinking that lies at the heart of our mission. We’re honored to support them in bringing their most ambitious climate action ideas to life,” said Savanna Ferguson, Executive Director of Climate Breakthrough.

Climate Breakthrough Award associated with Snowchange Landscape Rewilding Programme will establish a pan-boreal network of Restoration Hubs on peatlands with the following territories to start with

• Boreal peatlands at the Arctic Circle in Finland, including stepping stones ecosystems in Kemijärvi, Sodankylä, Savukoski and especially in Ranua. Additionally we will investigate the role of cultural landscapes in a wind power investments in Ranua
• Northern Minnesota and the St. Louis River peatlands
• Hudson Bay ecoregion in Canada
• Central Alaska with pilot areas currently being discussed

Launched in 2016, the Climate Breakthrough Award program is uniquely designed for social change leaders to develop, launch, and scale their new initiatives with breakthrough potential to address climate change.
The programme has supported in the past 22 individuals and one team of awardees. Climate Breakthrough Awardees have collectively secured over $236 million in follow-on funding from more than 90 different funders to advance their work. Combined, their Climate Breakthrough initiatives have the potential to reduce global annual greenhouse gas emissions by more than 5.3 gigatons by 2030.

Snowchange

13/11/2024

Onkamo Restoration Plan 1 is released

Onkamo Restoration Plan 1 is released to the public. It contains, in Finnish a number of recommendations of how a whole lake system could be restored. Additionally it recounts some history and ICCA status of the lakes.

Snowchange

17/09/2024

A New Documentary Film Released from Koitajoki

An American production company PrettyGoodProductions and Snowchange have finished a new documentary film about Koitajoki after three years of work. It is free to watch online.

Seining for a Song is a documentary by the American film director Thomas Miller, which deals with the history, culture and nature of Koitajoki in Eastern Finland.

The focus of the film is the country’s only river seining tradition, which renews the spawning areas of the endangered whitefish population. At the same time, the culture of the villages has changed and the restoration and rewilding efforts are under way.

The film is part of the cooperative’s extensive restoration activities in Koitajoki.

Snowchange

13/09/2024

BBC Reports on Snowchange Rewilding

BBC Future is running a large feature story on Linnunsuo and the Landscape Rewilding Programme.

Finland's Linnunsuo wetland used to be a barren "moonscape". A local fishing community has transformed it into a biodiverse haven and an important carbon sink. BBC has more.

Snowchange

15/08/2024

Mika Honkalinna Recognized with a Namesake Conservation Area at 60

Mika Honkalinna (born 8 August 1964 in Anjala) is a Finnish wildlife photographer and an author. Since 2018 Mika has been collaborating with Snowchange on visualizing and advancing the Landscape Rewilding Programme. In total Mika has inventoried and photographed dozens peatlands, forests, rivers and lakes in the programme. In August 2024 Mika turns 60 and in order to celebrate this Snowchange has decided to name Kiuasvaara Peatland and OGF forest in Pudasjärvi, totaling 18 hectares, as a Mika Honkalinna namesake site to celebrate Mika's life work and achievements for nature and Finnish traditions.

He was born and in Kymenlaakso, South-East Finland, where he lived much of his life, but at the moment he lives in Liminka, in North Ostrobothnia. Mika has said of his art:

"My photos and my stories are born in the midst of northern coniferous forests and swamps and often in the middle of northern winter, snow and ice, inspired by the survival and the aesthetics of winter. Most often, my illustrated stories are intertwined around the relationship between men and nature and the attempts to understand them. The sharp fluctuation of seasonal variations, the polar night in the winter, the light summer nights and the multi-faceted landscape of Fennoscandia create fascinating conditions for photographing and spending time outdoors."