Project. The full name of this camp organised in cooperation with the Estonian Nature Fund (ELF) is: Hay making in Karula National Park and alvar restoration at

The full name of this camp organised in cooperation with the Estonian Nature Fund (ELF) is: Hay making in Karula National Park and alvar restoration at Osmussaare Island, and it will be run on two sites.

Karula National Park -a smallest national park of the country is established to preserve the unique nature and culture of Southern Estonia. It has a lot of lakes and forest, splintered by small pastures and hones of friendly locals.

Osmussaare is an Estonian island situated in the mouth of the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea, 7.5 km off the Estonian mainland. Its area is 4.8 km2 Before Soviet Union occupied Estonia during World War II, around 130 people, mainly Estonian Swedes, lived on the island. The continuous settlement of Swedes on Osmussaare had dated back for centuries. Currently Osmussaare has only one family and the whole island is a nature reserve.

ELF’s conservation work camps project, which is carried out from 1998, has two main goals. One is to carry out conservation work in nature parks and protected areas and second is to bring people closer to nature, to promote environment-friendly and sustainable lifestyle. International conservation work camps are important part of ELF’s conservation holidays project. In international work camps ELF always involves local people to work alongside participants from other countries. The benefits in understanding, education and shared cultures can be great and the experience remembered by all. Also this kind of conservation works help to raise awareness of local people about values of local nature and importance of centuries old traditional land management.

Work

In Karula National Park the main work is mowing the wooded meadows along side with a local farmer. Mostly - the raking and taking hay off the meadow. Wooded meadows are traditional semi-natural communities that few hundred years ago were widespread in the countries around the Baltic Sea. They are sparse natural wooded areas with regularly mown herb layer where the characteristic appearance and species composition preserves only as a result of traditional agricultural activities: mowing or/and grazing. In terms of appearance and ecological conditions, wooded meadows are similar to parks, yet are considerably older and initially arose from natural communities.

On Osmussaare the work will take place on alvars. Practically it consists of the cutting and collection of brushwood, mainly junipers. This is important habitat protection work. Alvars can most simply be described as limestone-rich meadows with shallow soil, which generally lack trees and bushes. The thickness of the soil layer is generally up to twenty centimetres, yet in places soil may be almost completely absent and vegetation is then found only in fissures in the limestone and in smaller depressions.

Typical working hours per day 6 hours per day (for example: 9 -12 & 13-16). The working plan is as follows:

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