Biodiversity

The concept of biodiversity encompasses all the variety exhibited by living things, including the variation between species (species diversity), the genetic variation within species (genetic diversity) and the diversity of natural habitats. Landscape diversity, geological diversity and the viability of ecosystems are as well often discussed. Declining biodiversity is widely seen as one of the most serious environmental problems around the world today. In LUMONET project pages is a site where the biodiversity in Finland is described.

Working to preserve biodiversity

The term biodiversity first came into common usage in nature conservation circles in the early 1990s, and biodiversity soon became an important issue for environmental research, monitoring and policy-making in Finland. The goal of preserving biodiversity nowadays has a key role in Finnish environmental legislation.

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (Rio, 1992) obliges all signatory countries to monitor biodiversity, to carry out research and conservation work to help preserve biodiversity, and to make information on the state of biodiversity widely available.

Finland closely monitors biodiversity throughout the country, and information on biodiversity obtained through research, monitoring and other surveys is widely applied in nature conservation practices, in the management of natural habitats, and in environmental protection measures.