Three times as many wetlands as the new peat production area in Finland
Recently, peat production and wetlands have been the subject of lively discussion in the Finnish media. The next form of land use in areas freed from peat production has traditionally been afforestation, arable use or wetlands formed through raising water levels. Recently, the use of areas for wind and solar power production has also become more common.
Neova has established a total of more than 3,300 hectares of wetlands in peat production areas that have been phased out of production, which are geographically distributed across Finland into approximately 120 sites. Over the past five years, three times as many wetlands have been established, i.e. 1600 hectares, compared to the new peat production area of 468 hectares.
Biodiversity areas are areas owned by Neova, where bird towers and lean-tos intended for recreational use have been built, for example. The average size of wetlands is about 20 hectares, but there are many smaller and larger areas of more than one hundred hectares.
In 2020–2024, i.e. over the past five years, Finland has:
- established wetlands of 1,600 ha
- obtained new peat production permits of 468 hectares
- 551 hectares of rejected permit applications
- 11,908 hectares of abandoned areas
In 2024, the active peat production area in Finland was approximately 19,000 ha.
