In the spring of 2012, the foundation and the Ostrobothnia conservation district started a campaign for bogs, and as a result, the foundation has now managed to acquire 16 hectares of the Heinisuo bog in Alajärvi.

The area was offered to us by its owner, Teemu Hauta-aho, who was inspired by the campaign and decided to do something to preserve the natural values of the area.

Heinineva is one of the most valuable unprotected open bogs in the Ostrobothnia region. It is a soggy quagmire with stalk and sedge. It covers about 300 hectares, and nearly half of the nature types appearing there have become endangered.

Heinineva provides an open landscape. It is easy to travel there to experience the colours and the birds because there is a road running through the area. There are black grouses having their mating displays there in the springtime, and in the summertime, the area turns into a home for whooper swans, common cranes, and common terns as well as European herring gulls, common gulls, and little gulls raising their offspring. What makes the greatness of the area even more apparent is the fact that even Jack snipes and willow grouses are nesting there; after all, they are species that have already disappeared in southwest Finland and become endangered south of Lapland.

Heinisuo is the foundation’s 34th conservation area and the second one in Ostrobothnia.

Photo: Teemu Tuovinen.