Conservation of “traditional rural biotopes”

By Joern Fischer

This blog post comes to you from the Finnish town of Jyväskylä (you-what?!), where I was invited to be the opponent for a freshly submitted PhD thesis by Kaisa J. Raatikainen.  I had such a nice experience with this that I felt inspired to write this little reflection here. Kaisa’s thesis is very much worth reading: it’s available for download here.

One of the scenarios for traditional rural biotopes depicted by Kaisa Raatikainen in her thesis.

Before we move to more personal matters, let’s start with some science. Kaisa’s thesis focuses on what she calls “traditional rural biotopes”, namely wood pastures and meadows, in Finland. In a situation somewhat analogous to other parts of Europe (including Transylvania, where my own research group did a fair bit of work), traditional land use practices had maintained high levels of biodiversity; and were also tied to cultural heritage. And…