Along the boardwalk

Unique infrastructure and management allows visitors explore bog wilderness in Estonia's Soomaa National Park

Article courtesy of PAN Parks Foundation

Soomaa National Park, situated in south-western Estonia, was established in 1993 with the aim of preserving the area's natural values on landscape scale. From the very beginning, the main management objective has been the protection of the territory's countless species, and the conservation of the undisturbed forests, bogs and floodplains of the area, along with their cultural heritage.

TREADING LIGHTLY: Park management's efforts provide a great example of finding innovative ways to reduce negative visitor impact. Photo: Mati Klose

Soomaa's core wilderness area as we know it today has been sustained through non-extractive management, starting as early as the establishment of the mire conservation areas in 1981. Later on, when the national park was created, these areas were divided into special non-intervention management zones, the management aim of which (and for the Kuresoo special-management zone in particular) is to preserve the ecological character of bogs, protect the natural dynamics of bog, forest and river habitats, and to protect species dependent on these ecosystems.

Bog wildlife

There are 11,530 hectares of non-fragmented raised bog that preserved Soomaa National Park's wilderness character. The wilderness presence is verified by many species living in and around Soomaa, such as wolves, bears, lynx, elk and roe deer.

The park's floodplain meadows feed both greater and lesser spotted eagles, corncrakes and great snipes, and in the wilderness area there is also enough space for disturbance-alert species like the black stork, golden eagle or capercaillie. Furthermore, going deeper into the wilderness areas, visitors of the raised bogs may come across all kinds of bog waders from golden plover and wood sandpiper to whimbrel and curlew.

Design and management

The management method applied in Soomaa provides a great example of how zonation, as a management tool, helps to prevent conflict between intervention and non-intervention management. Combined usage makes it possible to simultaneously serve two purposes: organising public access to the park and sensitive area conservation. This, along with park management's means of controlling visitor impact, has created a good balance between the two-fold aim of preservation and promotion.

Soomaa National Park has established specially designated infrastructure for the general public to visit and experience wilderness. Boardwalks of different lengths have been installed, leading to various parts of the bogs and forests of the park. However, as many tour operators have realised, it is relatively hard to experience wilderness by walking in line on a boardwalk, so a new and inventive way of getting into closer contact with nature has been developed. Some operators have organised snowshoe tours off of designated routes and into the bogs. Snowshoes make it possible to walk over bog hollows that otherwise would swallow anyone daring to step on them, and at the same time they do not damage fragile vegetation.

Reducing impacts from tourism

Park management's efforts provide a great example of finding innovative ways to reduce negative visitor impact. They have observed that bog waders can tolerate the boardwalk and continue to breed about 500 metres away, so as long as visitors stay on the boardwalks. Experience has also shown that waders prefer to breed in pools and rich hollows where they are safely hidden from natural predators. Soomaa's management system reduces human disturbance by controlling access to such areas during breeding season, when animal species are most endangered.

Snowshoe tours in Soomaa are strictly controlled and are only provided by a limited number of local tour operators, all working in cooperation with the National Environmental Board, who are focused on preserving Soomaa's wilderness values. What this means in practice is that even without any written regulations, business partners offering these tours have developed alternate snowshoeing routes for May and June, breeding time for waders, thus avoiding sensitive territories.