Download Tentative List with Brief Descriptions

Tentative List with Brief Descriptions
Name of property: Wooded meadows (Laelatu, Kalli-Nedrema, Mäepea, Allika, Tagamoisa, Loode,
Koiva, Halliste)
State Party: Estonia (Europe and North America)
Coordinates: Laelatu: 23°34' N / 58°35' E Kalli-Nedrema: 24°04' N / 58°32' E Mäepea: 22°06' N / 58°18' E Allika: 23°48'
N / 58°43' E Tagamoisa: 22° N / 58°28' E Loode: 22°26' N / 58°14' E Koiva: 26°11' N / 57°41' E Halliste: 25°02' N / 58°23
Date of submission: 06/01/2004
Criteria: C (ii)(iii)(iv) N (ii)(iii)(iv)
Submitted by: Estonian Seminatural Community Conservation Association - E-mail: [email protected]
WH list (name, id):
State, Province or Region:
Brief Description
Wooded meadows are traditional seminatural communities that few hundred years ago were widespread in the countries
around the Baltic Sea but also in other parts of Europe. They are sparse natural wooded areas with regularly mown herb
layer where the characteristic appearance and species composition preserves only as a result of traditional agricultural
activities: mowing or/and grazing. In terms of appearance and ecological conditions, wooded meadows are similar to
parks, yet are considerably older and initially arose from natural communities. Wooded meadows are one of the oldest
ecosystems that have arisen through the interactions between man and nature in the forest zone. Most probably the first
communities similar to wooded meadows started to appear around the early settlements about 7000-8000 years ago. As
a result of wider development of animal husbandry in Estonian areas about 4000 years ago the importance of wooded
meadows continuously grew. Historically the distribution of wooded meadows and pastures has been very wide, likely
encompassing a large proportion of animal husbandry regions in the temperate zone, but mown wooded meadows were
typical only of Northern Europe. Wooded meadows performed as polyfunctional sources of hay, wood, berries,
mushrooms and hazelnuts, and had also a strong impact on the formation of Estonian ancient religious beliefs and rituals.
The area of wooded meadows started to decrease when population density and need for larger production grew. In most
of the regions of Europe these unique ecosystems disappeared already several hundred years ago with the development
of intensive agriculture. In Estonia the area of wooded meadows was the largest at the end of the 19th and in the
beginning of the 20th century when they covered approximately about one fifth of Estonian territory. (- 8500000 ha).Then
the importance of wooded meadows started to decrease: more productive communities were turned into cultural
grasslands and less fertile areas became overgrown. Mechanization was accompanied by giving up manual labor that
had been one of the main premises for the survival of the wooded meadows. The characteristic appearance and species
composition of an unmown wooded disappears already within every 5-10 years. The area of wooed meadows in Estonia
has decreased more that thousand times about 1000 ha of wooded meadows have survived up today, mainly
concentrated in the western part of Estonia. Everywhere else in Europe the unique communities have practically
vanished. Wooded meadows represent a number of natural and cultural values why they need to be protected. They
distinguish form other agricultural landscapes because of the unusually high plant species richness both on the
ecosystem and micro-community level. For that reason they have been of great interest to many scientists. These
communities are habitats for many rare and endangered species. Opposite to modern agricultural ecosystems wooded
meadows represent a remarkable aesthetic value that is expressed in the diverse flora and fauna as well as in the
characteristic heterogeneous appearance of half-opened landscape. Wooded meadows encompass the set of ancient
agricultural traditions including former working methods, tools and celebrations related to agricultural activities. They
serve an example of respective and wise attitude towards nature. Consequently, Estonian wooded meadows meet the
criteria both of cultural as well as natural sites and qualify into the third category of cultural landscapes (39iii) - they have
survived only due to certain connections between culture and nature. To outline the significance of the concept of wooded
meadows, we propose a serial nomination of 8 Estonian most representative wooded meadows.