Threatened Habitat Types in Finland 2018 - Red List of Habitats Results and Basis for Assessment

This publication summarises Part 1 of the final report on threatened habitat types published in Finnish. It presents the assessment method, the results and their justifications as well as a summary of action proposals drawn up by expert groups. The habitat type descriptions, distribution maps, photographs and habitat typespecific justifications can be found in Part 2 of the publication only available in Finnish. The assessment of threatened habitat types covered all natural habitat types and seminatural grasslands and wooded pastures in Finland. Assessment results are presented for 388 habitat types. Habitat types were divided into eight main groups: Baltic Sea (42 habitat types, 24% assessed as threatened), Baltic Sea coast (45, 58%), inland waters and shores (59, 20%), mires (69, 57%), forests (34, 76%), rock outcrops and scree (44, 25%), seminatural grasslands and wooded pastures (42, 100%) and fell habitats (53, 38%). This was the second assessment of threatened habitat types in Finland. This assessment was conducted using the international IUCN Red List of Ecosystems method. The primary assessment criteria were change in habitat type quantity, change in abiotic and biotic quality, and rarity. The current trends for habitat types in terms of their state were also assessed. Altogether 186 habitat types (48% of the total number of habitat types) were assessed as being threatened in the whole of Finland. The percentage of threatened habitat types in Southern Finland (59%) is clearly higher than in Northern Finland (32%). Because of the changes in assessment methodology, the results of the first and second assessment of threatened habitat types are not directly comparable with each other. The results do, however, lend themselves to the interpretation that the risk of habitat type loss has not been reduced.