Archaeovision R&D, together with the Estonian Fund of Nature (ELF) and the University of Tartu will be participating in the project “Conservation and Restoration of Mire habitats”.  The project will run for five years, during which about 5800 ha of mires damaged by drainage will be restored.

During the field inventory that was carried out by ELF between 2009 and 2012, it was found that Estonia has about 240 000 ha of wetlands (5,3% of total area). Compared to 1950s, the area has shrunk by about 2.8 times. The wetlands play an important role within the ecosystems of Estonia and Europe in general. A lot of work therefore has to be done within the conservation and to raise the public awareness to ensure the condition of the wetlands remain.

Archaeovision R&D will be working on cultural heritage of the wetlands, including field inventories where we hope to find new possible monuments. At the same time we are responsible for the IT-infrastructure of the project.

The project will be run in cooperation with State Forest Management Center (http://www.rmk.ee/) and Environmental Board of Estonia (http://www.keskkonnaamet.ee/).

Project is funded by European Commision LIFE Programme (http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/) and Environmental Investment Center (http://www.kik.ee) and will be running until 2020.

We look forward to working on this Mire preservation project over the next five years and will keep updating our blog with news of the project.