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Lessons from Lahti

S. Gopikrishna Warrier

Conservation at Lahti started with the lake. When the citizens of this city in Finland realised that the Lake Vesijarvi, on whose bank their city is located, was dying, they started a concerted action on environmental protection and regeneration.

If not for the ecorestoration of the lake, Lahti would not have grown to what is today. It has become one of the major Finnish centreS for winter sport, industry, learning and cultural activities.

This winter the city will hold the Nordic World Ski Championship for the sixth time. The industrial development of the city has centred around wood, plastics, environmental technology and the logistics sector.

Culturally, it is the city to which the famous Finnish composer, Jean Sibelius, came in 1895, looking for the peace and quiet of the countryside to give him inspiration. As a tribute to the composer, the city administration constructed a wooden concert h all on the edge of the lake where symphony orchestras and jazz musicians perform almost throughout the year.

By the 1970s the environment of the Vesijarvi Lake, however, did not remain the same as what Sibelius had seen. Senior scientists from the Environment Protection Centre (EPC) at Lahti say that Vesijarvi had become one of the eutrophic lakes in the countr y.

With high quantities of nutrients flowing into the lake from sewage and agricultural fields, there were severe blooms of blue-green algae. Using the lake for recreational activity had almost come to an end.

The challenge before the environmental managers was to reduce both the external and internal nutrient lad into the 110 sq.km. lake. In 1976 the city built a sewage treatment plant and prevented its sewage from reaching the lake. Artificial aeration of th e lake was carried out for a few years.

Involving the farmers and their families living around the lake was necessary to stop the external loading of nutrients. Those living around the lake had to co-operate and change the cultivation practices to reduce the nutrient and erosional run-off.

Bio-manipulation was used to control the internal nutrient loading. The aim of this exercise was to manipulate the food chain in the lake so that the animal and plant life itself regulated the algal bloom and turbidity.

When the number of fishes that fed on small animals and plants (zooplankton and phytoplankton) were reduced, the density of those zooplanktons that fed on the blue-green algae increased. This in turn decreased the turbidity of the water.

This had a positive impact on the nutrient concentration. On the one hand it decreased the concentration of nitrogen and phosphorous, and on the other it increased their turnover rate into aquatic life. This change in the nutrient dynamics favoured he gr owth of smaller algae, thereby starving the toxic blue-green algae.

Designing this technical intervention was only one side of the issue. Getting it operational required identifying the main planktivorous fish and catching them in abundance. It was found that the roach was the main species.

Between 1989 and 1993 the local fishermen caught 1,000 tonnes of fish, consisting mainly of roach. Through this the fishermen working the lake were also involved with its restoration.

A project document prepared by EPC computes the economic benefit of the eco-restoration of Vesijarvi in millions of Finnish Marakkas. These are in terms of increased value of real estate around the lake, and increase in fish catch and sale of fishing per mits. However, these are only the short-term benefits. The city would not have developed into a sporting and cultural centre if the lake had continued to be polluted. This is the most long-standing benefit.

According to Kari Porra, Director of EPC, the work at Lahti became a model for the conservation of other Finnish and European lakes -- both in terms of the technical intervention and in terms of getting the various stakeholders together. For any urban se ttlement managing the natural resources is of utmost importance. Whether the settlement would grow, or decay and die, is dependent on how well this is done.

True, there are problems of magnitude separating the situation of a city like Lahti and that of Indian cities. Lahti has a population of around one lakh, which is very small compared to that of Indian cities. In fact, some of the Indian cities have popul ation exceeding that of entire Finland -- 5.5 million.

There are also wide differences in the macro indicators between Finland and India. Finland is ranked tenth in UNDP's Human Development Report - 2001. India's rank is 115. Adult literacy rates are 99 per cent and 56.5 per cent respectively. While the GDP per capita is $ 23,096 in Finland it is $ 2,248 in India.

However, what can be replicated is the end-to-end planning. This is especially so when managing the natural resources, for only a concerted, planned action can achieve substantial results. More than the lack of financial resources, it is the lack of conc erted planning and action that results in the degeneration of urban natural resources.

Take for instance the situation in Chennai, which is going through a severe water shortage this summer. It is not as if the situation has hit the city or State administrators by surprise. Two consecutive monsoons had failed to deliver. The city has also had such water shortages in the past. However, there has not been any concerted action to avoid a crisis. If anything, most of the actions carried out since the last drought have worsened the situation rather than improve it.

The city has almost entirely been paved, either by asphalt on the roads, or by cement around buildings. The tanks in the city have been dumped with urban refuse and reclaimed. Housing colonies have been built on the flood plains of the rivers. And the wo rst is the systematic reclamation of the 30-sq.km. Pallikarnai swamp.

Interestingly, successive state governments have been promoting Chennai as a destination for setting up high-tech industries. Whatever be the aspirations of the administrators there can be no growth for the city unless the basic problem of water is sorte d out. Having neglected the conventional ways of recharging the aquifers, the city has to plead for the mercy of outsiders to meet its water needs.

The lesson that Lahti can teach other urban centres is the process of identifying the core environmental problem and finding a solution for it, and then building from there.

Feedback can be sent to warrier@thehindu.co.in