The Finnish Natural Heritage Foundation managed to acquire its first conservation area in the Kainuu region in May, when we decided to purchase an approximately ten-hectare area called Pahapuro in the municipality of Ristijärvi. The area includes almost a kilometre of a brook that runs in its natural state with trees lining it.

Pahapuro is located south of Laulajanvaara, approximately 15 kilometres east or southeast of the town centre of Ristijärvi. The brook flows out of Pahakorpi into Lake Ala-Laulaja partly winding through the stony ground.

More than half of the forest near the brook is about old spruces, but there are plenty of birches of different ages, too, growing among the spruces and all over the forest, in fact. The pine trees are standing higher up on the slope with the grandest ones having turned shield-barked by now. There are also small clearings turning into swamps, which is something that enlivens the landscape.

Pahapuro is the 37th conservation area of the foundation.