Poll: 80% want to expand nature reserves
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- 26 Jul 2022
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Some 80 percent of people support expanding Finland's nature reserves. That's according to an Yle survey carried out by pollster Taloustutkimus. Young people and women were most enthusiastic about increasing Finland's nature conservation areas.
Thirty-eight percent said they wanted to increase conservation efforts on both state-owned and private land, while 42 percent wanted initiatives to focus on forests owned by the state.
Leif Schulman, Director General of the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), said the results were a clear indication to decision makers.
The survey found that young adults were more enthusiastic about conservation than older generations. Women were also more inclined than men to want to protect nature.
Respondents represented different occupations. Compared to other professions, farmers were the most strongly opposed to the introduction of additional conservation initiatives. Respondents who reported being students or unemployed were the most enthusiastic about expanding nature reserves, according to Yle's poll.
Schulman said people are more inclined to favour voluntary conservation than forced initiatives.
Expanding nature conservation areas is necessary to halt the loss of biodiversity, according to Schulman who also said conservation alone will not solve the planet's biodiversity crisis.
"We have to change how we use our natural resources, especially in terms of agriculture and forestry," he said.
The Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (FANC) has long criticised the volume of harvesting and demanded that old forests in particular be protected from logging in order to protect biodiversity. Read More...
