WEBVTT

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It's really nice to have the experts here
with us! First things first:

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we could do a little round of introductions,
so, let's all say a bit about who we are

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and how we have worked
on national Red Lists.

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I can start. I am Kaisa
Raatikainen and I work as a researcher

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at the University of Jyväskylä. My background with
endangerment issues is that

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I have worked in environmental administration
with conservation-related tasks for several years.

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In addition, I have participated in
red-listing of Finnish habitats, or ecosystems,

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which was completed in 2018. Through this task

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I became familiar with the
threat assessment methods.

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And, in my other work,

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I have been able to apply
the knowledge of threatened species, as well.

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But let us now give the floor
to everyone at their own turn.

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Shall we start with Ulla-Maija?

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Yes, I am Ulla-Maija Liukko.

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I work for the Finnish Environment Institute

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as a Senior Coordinator.
I have been involved in

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in the 2010 Red List of Finnish species,
and also in the 2019 assessment.

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In the 2010 threat assessment
I worked as an expert and then in

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the latest one in 2019, I worked also as
an expert, but, also,

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I was coordinating the whole
practical implementation,

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the whole national assessment.

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And, of course, after the
assessment was done I’ve utilized

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its information in my
other work tasks, as well.

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And I’ve promoted the Red List
results. Let's put it this way.

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Yeah, and at this point of course it's good
to point out that all three of you guests

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are from the Finnish Environment Institute,
and the Finnish Environment Institute is

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a very important organization to
Finland's threat assessments,

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of course.

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Well then, Anne, would you tell us
who you are and what you have done

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with threat assessments?

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I am Anne Raunio, Head of Unit at the Finnish
Environment Institute, and I have worked

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as the leading manager of the Finnish ecosystems’ threat
assessment from the very beginning.

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So, at some point in the first half of the 2000s, we started,
from quite a blank slate, to think about

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what kind of assessment method and
ecosystem classifications could be used, so that

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we could create the first threat
assessment of the ecosystems.

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Now we have done two
assessments and the work continues still.

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And then Tytti.

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Yes, I am Tytti Kontula from the Finnish
Environment Institute and I have now worked twice,

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in 2008 and 2018, as a coordinator in the
Finnish Red List of ecosystems.

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And in addition to that, as an expert, particularly
in the specialist group on rocky habitats.

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Thank you.

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Well, let’s now first talk about
one hot topic.

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On our online courses,
there's a lot of talk about

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ecosystem threat assessment,

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and on the other hand, of species
– or taxa – threat assessment.

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So in Finland we are talking about
the threat assessment of “habitats”.

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So what is this all about,
that we don't assess

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ecosystems but habitats?

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Do you want to answer this, Anne?

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Well, at the beginning this terminology
was thought about a lot. There were many

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alternatives: for example habitat,
biotope, and of course, ecosystem.

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We chose the word habitat [luontotyyppi] because it's of Finnish origin
[in contrast to the word ecosystem, which is non-Finnish].

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Because we wanted this assessment to
work as a tool that could

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bring together a huge amount of
of different kinds of research and monitoring data,

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that could summarize it into a package that

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would be intelligible to others than
ecology experts, as well,

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that is, to policy makers and various
planners in different sectors.

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On the other hand, we already had the word
habitat established in the Finnish language

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when Finland became a member of the EU and
the Habitats Directive was translated into Finnish.

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Habitats Directive talks about species and habitats,
and in the same way our

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Nature Conservation Act
talks about species and habitats.

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So I guess you could say,
that even though threat assessment

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has a clear biological and
ecological background, there is still

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quite a lot of this kind of
administrative history, which is then

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reflected in terminology. Then quite
an important thing is also 

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the popularization aspect:
that we could transmit knowledge 

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of nature in society.

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In ecosystems' threat assessment, “LuTU work”,
it’s been thought

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that the word habitat is synonymous
with the word ecosystem.

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By the way, this “LuTU” word,
that came up, it is

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a nickname for habitat threat
assessment.

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So, in Finland, species’ threat
assessments have been conducted since 1986

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and since 2000,
these assessments

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have been based on IUCN’s, that is,
International Union for Conservation of Nature’s

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global guidelines.
And the latest Red list of species

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was published in 2019.

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The first threat assessment of Finnish
ecosystems was published

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in 2008, and the second threat assessment of the
Finnish ecosystems was done

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in 2018. In this more recent assessment,
the global IUCN methodology

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was adopted.

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Well, how has species’ threat
assessment evolved over the years?

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It's been done
since the 1980s. 

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That's a long history there,
so what kind of changes

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have happened in the threat 
assessments of species?

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What would Ulla-Maija tell us?

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Of course the evaluation has
been fine-tuned

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along the way, but that 1980s

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evaluation

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was done according to different
principles in the sense that

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it only looked at human-induced

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endangerment. It didn’t take
into account such species rarity or scarcity

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that was for natural reasons. And of course
the classifications and criteria

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weren’t in accordance with the 

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IUCN categories and criteria. However,
IUCN methodology and the fact that many countries

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were doing assessments provided inspiration. But
the first assessment was, let’s say,

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a bit amateurish.
And then the 1990s

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and 2000s assessments.
They were getting closer to the IUCN classification.

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They were more accurate and
perhaps more structured,

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but they were still a bit of a

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national version.

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And then for 2000, 2010, 2019 
assessments, then, IUCN criteria and categories

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were adopted in such a way,
that these assessments can be called IUCN assessments.

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Back in 2000 the national evaluation
method and then this new IUCN way

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were still used simultaneously,
so that this phase of accession 

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or transition could sort of be overcome

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and the results
could be compared.

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And of course, a thing about practical
implementation: the assessments’ documentation

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and other such things have
developed along the way,

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because IUCN has, of course, changed and

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clarified those categories 
and criteria, then of course

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we have followed their
example here, on national level.

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Well, what kind of changes have
taken place in the threat assessment

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of ecosystems?

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So, two assessments have been done, and
the first one was done with a bit of an own approach

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and then in the second one the
IUCN method was adopted.

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So what kind of, like a big
leap, happened in the meantime?

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Do you want to reflect on that, Anne?

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It was indeed a big change

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to switch over
to this IUCN method.

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Back then the IUCN method was quite
new, we were one of the first ones to use it

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when it was introduced, and it improved
the quality of ecosystem assessments,

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especially. Doing assessments became more 
quantitative, but at the same time it also

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became quite a lot
more difficult and laborious.

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But then another thing that
changed from that first assessment,

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was the introduction of
a new concept of “trend”.

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That in itself is not directly part of the IUCN methodology,
but it was felt to be necessary to complement it.

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“Trend” is essentially used to tell,
whether the status of an ecosystem is stable or declining,

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or whether it will improve if
current conservation measures and

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threats continue unchanged.

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Well, it is often mentioned that
Finnish threat assessments

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are of the highest quality.

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There is a long history of assessing species and in
assessing ecosystems, we were among the very first

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countries to apply the
IUCN global criteria.

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Is this true that our threat assessments
and data are the best and of 

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the highest quality? And if they are,
on what is this claim based?

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Tytti, do you want to answer this?

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Well, I can't really say
how the Finnish ecosystem assessments

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would be placed on such a
global quality scale.

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But I can imagine
that such a claim is based on

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for example, on how comprehensive

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Finnish assessment has been.
When it was completed in 2018,

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The Finnish assessment was indeed
one of the first in the world where

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all criteria was applied,
in the first place.

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And it was applied to all ecosystems.
Elsewhere assessments might have been

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done by using, for example,
the two easiest criteria

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or by assessing only some specific
group of ecosystems.

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Do you, Anne, remember any

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other reasons on which such an

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argument could base?

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Well, maybe you could say that we have
also invested in the documentation

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and publication of the results 
and the evidence behind them,

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although this has mainly been done in Finnish

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but still in such a way
that the documentation is as

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practicable and transparent as possible.

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And, in my opinion, the assessments have clearly raised
public awareness of ecosystems,

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which before these threat assessments
was really low.

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Yes.

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In this case, the coverage of assessments can
perhaps be measured in kilograms, also.

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Do you, Anne, still remember how much
was the total weight of our publication?

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The first publication weighed four kilos,
but the second one weighed much more.

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I haven't weighed that one.
- Altogether, there were 1300 pages.

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That's a great information package of the
biodiversity of Finland! And, in a way,

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in addition to the information on endangerment, it's great
information as it involves the descriptions of 

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Finnish ecosystems, that sort of

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description of our nature. So the
threat assessment of ecosystems is

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quite a package.

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Ulla-Maija, when it comes to the species assessments,
how could this claim on quality be justified?

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How I would describe this
situation, is that Finland is

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among those countries
that have used

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IUCN criteria in as
orthodox way as possible.

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I don't know if our
assessments are of any

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better quality than of any other country’s.

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But we do have quite a good coverage in the
assessment, although that's not the best

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in the world, either. But still,
let's just say that we're

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among those countries that have done it well.

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But no, I don’t dare
to say that our assessments

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would be of the world’s highest quality.
But we’re among the top group.

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You mentioned that the
coverage is good. Do you mean

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that between groups of organisms the coverage is good?
- Yes.

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Among scientists, especially
regarding the threat assessment of

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species, there is praise for Finland's monitoring data.
Of course, there’s always room for improvement

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in monitoring species and ecosystems and other
elements of nature, but it has been pointed out 

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at an international level that
Finland has quite good monitoring data,

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that provide the quantitative background data
to support at least the species 

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threat assessment.
It’s on quite a good level.