WEBVTT 1 00:00:12.440 --> 00:00:19.370 It's really nice to have the experts here with us! First things first: 2 00:00:19.370 --> 00:00:25.920 we could do a little round of introductions, so, let's all say a bit about who we are 3 00:00:25.920 --> 00:00:30.330 and how we have worked on national Red Lists. 4 00:00:30.330 --> 00:00:36.210 I can start. I am Kaisa Raatikainen and I work as a researcher 5 00:00:36.210 --> 00:00:43.650 at the University of Jyväskylä. My background with endangerment issues is that 6 00:00:43.650 --> 00:00:48.910 I have worked in environmental administration with conservation-related tasks for several years. 7 00:00:48.910 --> 00:00:54.030 In addition, I have participated in red-listing of Finnish habitats, or ecosystems, 8 00:00:54.030 --> 00:01:00.520 which was completed in 2018. Through this task 9 00:01:00.520 --> 00:01:05.820 I became familiar with the threat assessment methods. 10 00:01:05.820 --> 00:01:08.640 And, in my other work, 11 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:14.240 I have been able to apply the knowledge of threatened species, as well. 12 00:01:14.240 --> 00:01:17.150 But let us now give the floor to everyone at their own turn. 13 00:01:17.150 --> 00:01:22.710 Shall we start with Ulla-Maija? 14 00:01:22.710 --> 00:01:25.510 Yes, I am Ulla-Maija Liukko. 15 00:01:25.510 --> 00:01:28.710 I work for the Finnish Environment Institute 16 00:01:28.710 --> 00:01:35.050 as a Senior Coordinator. I have been involved in 17 00:01:35.050 --> 00:01:40.890 in the 2010 Red List of Finnish species, and also in the 2019 assessment. 18 00:01:40.890 --> 00:01:46.770 In the 2010 threat assessment I worked as an expert and then in 19 00:01:46.770 --> 00:01:52.530 the latest one in 2019, I worked also as an expert, but, also, 20 00:01:52.530 --> 00:01:56.900 I was coordinating the whole practical implementation, 21 00:01:56.900 --> 00:02:00.740 the whole national assessment. 22 00:02:00.740 --> 00:02:04.720 And, of course, after the assessment was done I’ve utilized 23 00:02:04.720 --> 00:02:08.400 its information in my other work tasks, as well. 24 00:02:08.400 --> 00:02:14.780 And I’ve promoted the Red List results. Let's put it this way. 25 00:02:14.780 --> 00:02:19.000 Yeah, and at this point of course it's good to point out that all three of you guests 26 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:22.440 are from the Finnish Environment Institute, and the Finnish Environment Institute is 27 00:02:22.440 --> 00:02:26.440 a very important organization to Finland's threat assessments, 28 00:02:26.440 --> 00:02:28.860 of course. 29 00:02:28.860 --> 00:02:33.050 Well then, Anne, would you tell us who you are and what you have done 30 00:02:33.050 --> 00:02:36.290 with threat assessments? 31 00:02:36.290 --> 00:02:41.960 I am Anne Raunio, Head of Unit at the Finnish Environment Institute, and I have worked 32 00:02:41.960 --> 00:02:47.410 as the leading manager of the Finnish ecosystems’ threat assessment from the very beginning. 33 00:02:47.410 --> 00:02:55.070 So, at some point in the first half of the 2000s, we started, from quite a blank slate, to think about 34 00:02:55.070 --> 00:03:00.700 what kind of assessment method and ecosystem classifications could be used, so that 35 00:03:00.700 --> 00:03:06.210 we could create the first threat assessment of the ecosystems. 36 00:03:06.210 --> 00:03:12.010 Now we have done two assessments and the work continues still. 37 00:03:12.010 --> 00:03:14.630 And then Tytti. 38 00:03:14.630 --> 00:03:20.730 Yes, I am Tytti Kontula from the Finnish Environment Institute and I have now worked twice, 39 00:03:20.730 --> 00:03:29.510 in 2008 and 2018, as a coordinator in the Finnish Red List of ecosystems. 40 00:03:29.510 --> 00:03:38.810 And in addition to that, as an expert, particularly in the specialist group on rocky habitats. 41 00:03:38.810 --> 00:03:46.430 Thank you. 42 00:03:46.430 --> 00:03:53.150 Well, let’s now first talk about one hot topic. 43 00:03:53.150 --> 00:03:57.610 On our online courses, there's a lot of talk about 44 00:03:57.610 --> 00:04:00.420 ecosystem threat assessment, 45 00:04:00.420 --> 00:04:05.340 and on the other hand, of species – or taxa – threat assessment. 46 00:04:05.340 --> 00:04:11.000 So in Finland we are talking about the threat assessment of “habitats”. 47 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:14.140 So what is this all about, that we don't assess 48 00:04:14.140 --> 00:04:16.320 ecosystems but habitats? 49 00:04:16.320 --> 00:04:19.980 Do you want to answer this, Anne? 50 00:04:19.980 --> 00:04:24.880 Well, at the beginning this terminology was thought about a lot. There were many 51 00:04:24.880 --> 00:04:33.440 alternatives: for example habitat, biotope, and of course, ecosystem. 52 00:04:33.440 --> 00:04:40.300 We chose the word habitat [luontotyyppi] because it's of Finnish origin [in contrast to the word ecosystem, which is non-Finnish]. 53 00:04:40.300 --> 00:04:45.970 Because we wanted this assessment to work as a tool that could 54 00:04:45.970 --> 00:04:52.600 bring together a huge amount of of different kinds of research and monitoring data, 55 00:04:52.600 --> 00:04:54.400 that could summarize it into a package that 56 00:04:54.400 --> 00:04:58.290 would be intelligible to others than ecology experts, as well, 57 00:04:58.290 --> 00:05:03.240 that is, to policy makers and various planners in different sectors. 58 00:05:03.240 --> 00:05:09.640 On the other hand, we already had the word habitat established in the Finnish language 59 00:05:09.640 --> 00:05:15.250 when Finland became a member of the EU and the Habitats Directive was translated into Finnish. 60 00:05:15.250 --> 00:05:19.920 Habitats Directive talks about species and habitats, and in the same way our 61 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:24.730 Nature Conservation Act talks about species and habitats. 62 00:05:24.730 --> 00:05:30.140 So I guess you could say, that even though threat assessment 63 00:05:30.140 --> 00:05:34.170 has a clear biological and ecological background, there is still 64 00:05:34.170 --> 00:05:39.490 quite a lot of this kind of administrative history, which is then 65 00:05:39.490 --> 00:05:45.270 reflected in terminology. Then quite an important thing is also 66 00:05:45.270 --> 00:05:51.630 the popularization aspect: that we could transmit knowledge 67 00:05:51.630 --> 00:05:53.760 of nature in society. 68 00:05:53.760 --> 00:05:58.240 In ecosystems' threat assessment, “LuTU work”, it’s been thought 69 00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:02.830 that the word habitat is synonymous with the word ecosystem. 70 00:06:02.830 --> 00:06:06.160 By the way, this “LuTU” word, that came up, it is 71 00:06:06.160 --> 00:06:16.900 a nickname for habitat threat assessment. 72 00:06:16.900 --> 00:06:22.200 So, in Finland, species’ threat assessments have been conducted since 1986 73 00:06:22.200 --> 00:06:28.320 and since 2000, these assessments 74 00:06:28.320 --> 00:06:32.950 have been based on IUCN’s, that is, International Union for Conservation of Nature’s 75 00:06:32.950 --> 00:06:38.690 global guidelines. And the latest Red list of species 76 00:06:38.690 --> 00:06:43.060 was published in 2019. 77 00:06:43.060 --> 00:06:47.840 The first threat assessment of Finnish ecosystems was published 78 00:06:47.840 --> 00:06:53.020 in 2008, and the second threat assessment of the Finnish ecosystems was done 79 00:06:53.020 --> 00:06:57.360 in 2018. In this more recent assessment, the global IUCN methodology 80 00:06:57.360 --> 00:07:01.500 was adopted. 81 00:07:01.500 --> 00:07:06.580 Well, how has species’ threat assessment evolved over the years? 82 00:07:06.580 --> 00:07:09.580 It's been done since the 1980s. 83 00:07:09.580 --> 00:07:14.060 That's a long history there, so what kind of changes 84 00:07:14.060 --> 00:07:17.750 have happened in the threat assessments of species? 85 00:07:17.750 --> 00:07:23.620 What would Ulla-Maija tell us? 86 00:07:23.620 --> 00:07:27.180 Of course the evaluation has been fine-tuned 87 00:07:27.180 --> 00:07:31.230 along the way, but that 1980s 88 00:07:31.230 --> 00:07:34.000 evaluation 89 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:37.560 was done according to different principles in the sense that 90 00:07:37.560 --> 00:07:42.220 it only looked at human-induced 91 00:07:42.220 --> 00:07:48.440 endangerment. It didn’t take into account such species rarity or scarcity 92 00:07:48.440 --> 00:07:52.510 that was for natural reasons. And of course the classifications and criteria 93 00:07:52.510 --> 00:07:55.440 weren’t in accordance with the 94 00:07:55.440 --> 00:08:00.630 IUCN categories and criteria. However, IUCN methodology and the fact that many countries 95 00:08:00.630 --> 00:08:04.840 were doing assessments provided inspiration. But the first assessment was, let’s say, 96 00:08:04.840 --> 00:08:09.310 a bit amateurish. And then the 1990s 97 00:08:09.310 --> 00:08:16.090 and 2000s assessments. They were getting closer to the IUCN classification. 98 00:08:16.090 --> 00:08:21.300 They were more accurate and perhaps more structured, 99 00:08:21.300 --> 00:08:24.790 but they were still a bit of a 100 00:08:24.790 --> 00:08:28.250 national version. 101 00:08:28.250 --> 00:08:37.680 And then for 2000, 2010, 2019 assessments, then, IUCN criteria and categories 102 00:08:37.680 --> 00:08:42.490 were adopted in such a way, that these assessments can be called IUCN assessments. 103 00:08:42.490 --> 00:08:48.210 Back in 2000 the national evaluation method and then this new IUCN way 104 00:08:48.210 --> 00:08:52.730 were still used simultaneously, so that this phase of accession 105 00:08:52.730 --> 00:08:55.450 or transition could sort of be overcome 106 00:08:55.450 --> 00:09:01.710 and the results could be compared. 107 00:09:01.710 --> 00:09:05.990 And of course, a thing about practical implementation: the assessments’ documentation 108 00:09:05.990 --> 00:09:08.750 and other such things have developed along the way, 109 00:09:08.750 --> 00:09:12.440 because IUCN has, of course, changed and 110 00:09:12.440 --> 00:09:16.100 clarified those categories and criteria, then of course 111 00:09:16.100 --> 00:09:20.270 we have followed their example here, on national level. 112 00:09:20.270 --> 00:09:24.090 Well, what kind of changes have taken place in the threat assessment 113 00:09:24.090 --> 00:09:25.890 of ecosystems? 114 00:09:25.890 --> 00:09:31.730 So, two assessments have been done, and the first one was done with a bit of an own approach 115 00:09:31.730 --> 00:09:35.490 and then in the second one the IUCN method was adopted. 116 00:09:35.490 --> 00:09:39.500 So what kind of, like a big leap, happened in the meantime? 117 00:09:39.500 --> 00:09:43.550 Do you want to reflect on that, Anne? 118 00:09:43.550 --> 00:09:45.590 It was indeed a big change 119 00:09:45.590 --> 00:09:49.690 to switch over to this IUCN method. 120 00:09:49.690 --> 00:09:54.620 Back then the IUCN method was quite new, we were one of the first ones to use it 121 00:09:54.620 --> 00:10:00.370 when it was introduced, and it improved the quality of ecosystem assessments, 122 00:10:00.370 --> 00:10:05.070 especially. Doing assessments became more quantitative, but at the same time it also 123 00:10:05.070 --> 00:10:09.270 became quite a lot more difficult and laborious. 124 00:10:09.270 --> 00:10:16.090 But then another thing that changed from that first assessment, 125 00:10:16.090 --> 00:10:21.090 was the introduction of a new concept of “trend”. 126 00:10:21.090 --> 00:10:28.990 That in itself is not directly part of the IUCN methodology, but it was felt to be necessary to complement it. 127 00:10:28.990 --> 00:10:37.150 “Trend” is essentially used to tell, whether the status of an ecosystem is stable or declining, 128 00:10:37.150 --> 00:10:42.070 or whether it will improve if current conservation measures and 129 00:10:42.070 --> 00:10:46.120 threats continue unchanged. 130 00:10:46.120 --> 00:10:50.580 Well, it is often mentioned that Finnish threat assessments 131 00:10:50.580 --> 00:10:53.880 are of the highest quality. 132 00:10:53.880 --> 00:10:59.700 There is a long history of assessing species and in assessing ecosystems, we were among the very first 133 00:10:59.700 --> 00:11:05.840 countries to apply the IUCN global criteria. 134 00:11:05.840 --> 00:11:10.700 Is this true that our threat assessments and data are the best and of 135 00:11:10.700 --> 00:11:14.620 the highest quality? And if they are, on what is this claim based? 136 00:11:14.620 --> 00:11:19.130 Tytti, do you want to answer this? 137 00:11:19.130 --> 00:11:25.390 Well, I can't really say how the Finnish ecosystem assessments 138 00:11:25.390 --> 00:11:28.330 would be placed on such a global quality scale. 139 00:11:28.330 --> 00:11:31.510 But I can imagine that such a claim is based on 140 00:11:31.510 --> 00:11:34.300 for example, on how comprehensive 141 00:11:34.300 --> 00:11:40.930 Finnish assessment has been. When it was completed in 2018, 142 00:11:40.930 --> 00:11:43.950 The Finnish assessment was indeed one of the first in the world where 143 00:11:43.950 --> 00:11:47.470 all criteria was applied, in the first place. 144 00:11:47.470 --> 00:11:52.070 And it was applied to all ecosystems. Elsewhere assessments might have been 145 00:11:52.070 --> 00:11:56.010 done by using, for example, the two easiest criteria 146 00:11:56.010 --> 00:12:02.100 or by assessing only some specific group of ecosystems. 147 00:12:02.100 --> 00:12:04.940 Do you, Anne, remember any 148 00:12:04.940 --> 00:12:08.890 other reasons on which such an 149 00:12:08.890 --> 00:12:11.760 argument could base? 150 00:12:11.760 --> 00:12:18.460 Well, maybe you could say that we have also invested in the documentation 151 00:12:18.460 --> 00:12:22.700 and publication of the results and the evidence behind them, 152 00:12:22.700 --> 00:12:24.600 although this has mainly been done in Finnish 153 00:12:24.600 --> 00:12:29.220 but still in such a way that the documentation is as 154 00:12:29.220 --> 00:12:33.580 practicable and transparent as possible. 155 00:12:33.580 --> 00:12:41.900 And, in my opinion, the assessments have clearly raised public awareness of ecosystems, 156 00:12:41.900 --> 00:12:46.530 which before these threat assessments was really low. 157 00:12:46.530 --> 00:12:49.180 Yes. 158 00:12:49.180 --> 00:12:54.600 In this case, the coverage of assessments can perhaps be measured in kilograms, also. 159 00:12:54.600 --> 00:12:59.800 Do you, Anne, still remember how much was the total weight of our publication? 160 00:12:59.800 --> 00:13:04.500 The first publication weighed four kilos, but the second one weighed much more. 161 00:13:04.500 --> 00:13:11.990 I haven't weighed that one. - Altogether, there were 1300 pages. 162 00:13:11.990 --> 00:13:16.690 That's a great information package of the biodiversity of Finland! And, in a way, 163 00:13:16.690 --> 00:13:22.170 in addition to the information on endangerment, it's great information as it involves the descriptions of 164 00:13:22.170 --> 00:13:25.710 Finnish ecosystems, that sort of 165 00:13:25.710 --> 00:13:29.890 description of our nature. So the threat assessment of ecosystems is 166 00:13:29.890 --> 00:13:34.330 quite a package. 167 00:13:34.330 --> 00:13:41.190 Ulla-Maija, when it comes to the species assessments, how could this claim on quality be justified? 168 00:13:41.190 --> 00:13:45.810 How I would describe this situation, is that Finland is 169 00:13:45.810 --> 00:13:49.610 among those countries that have used 170 00:13:49.610 --> 00:13:55.650 IUCN criteria in as orthodox way as possible. 171 00:13:55.650 --> 00:14:00.370 I don't know if our assessments are of any 172 00:14:00.370 --> 00:14:03.160 better quality than of any other country’s. 173 00:14:03.160 --> 00:14:08.960 But we do have quite a good coverage in the assessment, although that's not the best 174 00:14:08.960 --> 00:14:14.630 in the world, either. But still, let's just say that we're 175 00:14:14.630 --> 00:14:17.360 among those countries that have done it well. 176 00:14:17.360 --> 00:14:24.580 But no, I don’t dare to say that our assessments 177 00:14:24.580 --> 00:14:29.810 would be of the world’s highest quality. But we’re among the top group. 178 00:14:29.810 --> 00:14:33.010 You mentioned that the coverage is good. Do you mean 179 00:14:33.010 --> 00:14:39.100 that between groups of organisms the coverage is good? - Yes. 180 00:14:39.100 --> 00:14:45.900 Among scientists, especially regarding the threat assessment of 181 00:14:45.900 --> 00:14:51.380 species, there is praise for Finland's monitoring data. Of course, there’s always room for improvement 182 00:14:51.380 --> 00:14:57.520 in monitoring species and ecosystems and other elements of nature, but it has been pointed out 183 00:14:57.520 --> 00:15:02.260 at an international level that Finland has quite good monitoring data, 184 00:15:02.260 --> 00:15:09.080 that provide the quantitative background data to support at least the species 185 00:15:09.080 --> 00:15:12.800 threat assessment. It’s on quite a good level.