Friends of Malmi Airport supports and endorses the citizens’ initiative for a nature reserve at Malmi Airport

Jul 26, 2019
Malmi Airport’s 100-hectare meadow and the surrounding woods form a nature oasis of significant biodiversity and shelter several endangered species in Helsinki. Photo: Petri Asikainen. 18 September 2016.

Friends of Malmi Airport Association supports and endorses the citizens’ initiative, launched by Mission Aviation Fellowship Finland (MAF), to form a special Malmi Airport Nature Reserve that would protect the biodiversity of the airport and its surrounding areas at the present level. In order to achieve these goals, the initiative also proposes that the threatened ecosystem of the area is preserved by keeping the aviation activity that has supported the rich ecosystem for the last 80 years.

”The initiative is fully in accord with the goals of our Association and also lends support to our proposal to protect the area based on the Nature Conservation Act, filed in January with the ELY Centre of Uusimaa”, says FoMA’s chairman, Mr. Timo Hyvönen. “As the experts of the ELY Centre have already before any decisions made public statements about our proposal to the effect that it probably won’t succeed, a citizens’ initiative is more than appropriate.”

A proposal is also pending to protect the area based on the Act on the Protection of Built Heritage. The matter will soon be once more handed to the Ministry for the Environment after the ELY Centre processed it based on the Land Use and Building Act, which was not the basis of the protection proposal.

For this reason, we urge every Finnish citizen to sign the citizens’ initiative to preserve Malmi Airport and its nature values at https://www.kansalaisaloite.fi/fi/aloite/4903.

Protection proposal filed with the ELY Centre: http://www.malmiairport.fi/en/initiative-filed-to-protect-malmi-airport-and-its-fringes-as-a-whole-based-on-the-nature-conservation-act/

News about the protections status of the burren green moth (in Finnish): http://www.malmiairport.fi/malmin-lentokenttaalueen-asuntorakentamiselle-jalleen-uusi-iso-este/

Protection proposal based on the Act on the Protection of Built Heritage: http://www.malmiairport.fi/en/press-release-15-october-2015-application-filed-to-protect-malmi-airport-as-a-whole/