Baltic Circle organises a rewilding trip to its nature restoration site Oravasuo, located in Ähtäri, in September 2022. The ticket sales for the trip have started at Tiketti. Oravasuo’s rewilding activities are carried out together with Snowchange Cooperation.
The rewilding trip organised by Baltic Circle will be held 10.-11.9.2022 at Oravasuo, a bog which protection and rewilding efforts the festival follows and supports. The rewilding of Oravasuo is carried out by Snowchange Cooperative, which acquired the site for protection in June 2020 from the threat of peat production.
The trip to the bog in September offers participants a concrete opportunity to take part in combating the effects of climate change. The weekend starts the rewilding of Oravasuo and the connected areas Siltaneva and Rasinneva as participants start blocking ditches one shovelful at a time.
“The purpose of our rewilding project is to make a switch from climate talk into action. Last year we made the first trip with our audience to the bog, where the first snow had just fallen and birds were making their autumn migration. We got a concrete understanding of Finland’s harsh land use policy while the sun colored the sky golden. It made many participants want to take countermeasures,” says the festival’s artistic director Hanna Parry.
Real-life experiences offer the opportunity to understand the climate crisis better
The event is part of Baltic Circle’s multi-year project, Wild Trippers, that focuses on introducing environmental information and strengthening communality in the fight against climate change. It encourages everyday environmental activism and invites people to low-threshold activities and sharing observations.
“The climate crisis now requires concrete actions from all sectors, as time is short. In the context of an international theatre festival, we can bring people and information together, increase empathy and imagine alternative narratives instead of the familiar ones,” reflects Parry.
In addition to the trip, Baltic Circle participates in the protection and rewilding of Oravasuo and the sites connected to it by collecting donations and funds for the activities in the site, and by monitoring the progress of the restoration work and reporting on it.