Press release June 4, 2021
Pertti Salolainen’s birthday donation sped up the protection of Päivänsalo

The Finnish Natural Heritage Foundation recently purchased approximately twenty hectares of forest in Paimela, between Lahti and Vääksy, which has been named Päivänsalo. The conservation area is located at the end of a road in a quiet region. Most of the area consists of rugged spruce forest, which is more than a hundred years old and of the herb-rich heath forest type. The forest also contains handsome groups of aspens, small rocky areas with seepage, two marshy hollows, and a rocky pine wood with Cladonia stellaris, a type of reindeer lichen. The westward slope has younger stock of broadleaf trees which have spread naturally and includes valuable species such as little-leaf linden.

The Foundation was also able to protect a separate section of forest located in the vicinity of Päivänsalo when minister and long-term Member of Parliament Pertti Salolainen raised 26,000 euros for forest conservation via the WWF’s fundraising site in honour of his 80th birthday. WWF and Salolainen decided to donate the proceeds to the Finnish Natural Heritage Foundation, which allowed the Foundation to protect approximately 2.5 hectares of old-growth forest. Pertti Salolainen is the founder of WWF Finland and its honorary chairman, as well as a long-term supporter of the Finnish Natural Heritage Foundation. He wants to encourage people to donate to nature conservation work. Turning the forest in Paimela into a conservation area was the result of two foundations, WWF Finland and the Finnish Natural Heritage Foundation, joining forces to protect forests.

“I can recommend fundraising for both foundations for birthdays and other special days. A will is also a good way to support these foundations’ forest conservation work,” Salolainen says.

The area purchased with the funds raised through Salolainen’s birthday fundraiser, which is connected to Päivänsalo, will be named Pertinkulma II (Pertti’s Corner II). The purchase of Pertinkulma I, located in Koirasuonmäki in Paimela, was funded by Salolainen in 2016. It is located quite close to Päivänsalo as the crow flies, as is the Kullerolehto conservation area.

“Päivänsalo and Pertinkulma II are important additions to the valuable ‘archipelago’ of conservation areas in Paimela – a chain of conservation areas located close together, which makes up an ecologically significant network of old forests in the Päijät-Häme region,” the Finnish Natural Heritage Foundation’s Conservation Director Anneli Jussila comments.

During a joint trip by the Finnish Natural Heritage Foundation, WWF and Pertti Salolainen to Päivänsalo in early June, a sign with information about Pertinkulma II was placed in the forest.