This month, some of our team went out to Estonia to meet some wonderful people from their environmental board and the ministry! Keep reading to see what we got up to...
Lahemaa National Park
On the first day with the environmental board, we met up at their office in Tallinn (Estonia's Capital) to meet some of their team and discuss how they deal with invasive non-native species. We got to meet Eike who showed us round all week, as well as some of her colleagues. We did a presentation on our work in the Tees catchment before heading out for some lunch.
In the afternoon, Eike took us to Lahemaa National Park where they showed us one of their bog restoration projects. Bogs are incredible important habitats for both plant and mammal species, as well as great for carbon capture! How incredible are these views?
If you want more information about this beautiful site you can find it here: VIRU BOG
Giant hogweed sites
On the second day with Eike, we started the day by visiting some of their giant
hogweed sites. Estonia has multiple invasive hogweed species including Sosnowsky's hogweed. One site of particular interest was right along the coast, which we don't tend to find in the Tees catchment. We had discussions about their current management techniques (digging, salt, heatwave, geo-texile and pesticide use). These were really valuable to discuss to see if we could implement any methods back here. Some methods such as salt we cannot use here due to it changing the pH level in soil, but there were plans to see the geo-texile sites later in the week.
One of the other sites we visited in the afternoon was along a river with a weir, one of the issues they are currently having is in relation to the weir preventing salmon swimming upstream, but due to the age of the weir many people see it as a heritage. We discussed potential fish passes and what could be done for the site in the future.
Valaste Waterfall and Alutaguse National Park
Halfway through the week, we started the day by visiting Valaste Waterfall (a bit
different from High Force!). Estonia haven’t had rain for around 2 months which is showing a big impact on a lot of their plants and natural resources.
We then had the privilege of visiting Alutaguse National Park to have a look at their one of their ancient forests. The woodland we visited as never known to have any management. We saw lots of protected species (moss, lichens, plants, fungi). On the 6th July 2022, the environmental board found a species which was previously known to be extinct, in this woodland which is very exciting! There are plans for monitoring later in the year and raise awareness for protecting species!
INNS Management: Japanese knotweed and Giant hogweed.
A day of geo-textile visits! The environmental board have been trying to minimise their use of chemicals for their invasive species management. Part of this has included techniques such as hand pulling balsam and digging out hogweed. However, one of the most recent methods they have put into use is using geo-textile fabric for both Japanese knotweed and giant hogweed.
For the site below (Japanese knotweed), the area was first cut, this was so that they could lay the textile fairly flat over the knotweed. After this, the area was covered with a 20cm layer of soil (the soil has to come from a completely new site/fresh soil to ensure it has not been contaminated with invasive species). Following this, the soil is scattered with grass and wildflower seeds. The geotextile is not a permanent solution, but the aim is to leave it there as a suppressant long enough for the Japanese knotweeds to die out. The plan on this specific site will involve monitoring and removal of the geo-textile in around 10 years.
Japanese knotweed geo-texile site
The other geo-textile site we saw (pictured below) was used for giant hogweed along a ditched area. Sign posts were placed at the start of the site in both Ukrainian and Russian to make sure the project area is not disturbed. This site is slightly different from the Japanese knotweed one as no topsoil is used. Instead the geo-textile is left as it is. When the weather gets hot, the geo-textile heats up, burning the seedbanks of the giant hogweed. Again, this is still early days, but they have seen some success once areas of the textile are removed, native species growing instead of giant hogweed. Some of the geo-textile sites are biodegradable, but the plan will be to remove them once they have suppressed the species, and either reuse them or recycle them properly.
All we can say is a huge thank you to Eike and all of her colleagues from the Ministry and Environmental board for such an incredible week. We have learnt so much about how they manage invasive aliens out there, in the hope we can implement some of the techniques here on the Tees! Watch this space.
