Starting to progress

Our group's work has started a bit slowly and we have still many things that should be considered. The background study has been a quite challenging because there is not so much literature about the river. Also, we are dealing with wide range of different things. Our objective is both cultural and ecological restoration. The culture of the area used to be strongly related to fishing but it is difficult to estimate how important fishing would be for the culture nowadays. Nevertheless migrating fishes are important for the river ecosystem.

We are planning to do a plan which would distract the production of hydro power as much as possible although Fortum has stated that the local hydro power plants are not financially significant for them. Anyhow, cultural and ecological restoration are not disturbing each other. For example endangered shellfish population of the river needs migrating fishes (salmon or trout) for reproduction. Mustionjoki used to be a very good river for fishing and we think that if it would be restored ecologically it would bring tourism to the area. There are not so many good fishing rivers in Uusimaa area.

This week we are finishing our project plan and have a meeting with the mentors on Thursday. Probably then we will have a better understanding about what kind of planning would be reasonable. Probably we are not going to technical details, but are trying to wind visionary plans for the area. Fortum probably has enough technical knowledge about building wish ways etc. We will try to find the things that would be important for the local people and do a plan which would arouse their interest. If the plan is published in local newspapers it hopefully creates debates about the future of the area as well.

Our group visited the area last weekend. Now we have more concrete knowledge about the area and we can start to make plans better. We'll do a lot of brainstorming in the near future!

- Mika