Snowchange Pacific Tour has ended. Visits and collaborations extended across Tasmania, Aoteroroa, Vanuatu and ended with visits to restoration and partner sites in British Columbia. In Finnish Sámi area a major conservation breakthrough emerged from discovery of new population of freshwater mussels, critically endangered. Year ends with major steps in securing new Arctic Circle and boreal peatlands.
Visits to Tasmania to discuss Pacific issues and Indigenous Australian partnerships provided plans for 2026 and the Festival of Fishing Traditions, slated for 2027. Onwards in Aoteoroa Te Anamāhanga Wetland Restoration Project has concluded for the year. A joint effort of Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō Trust and Snowchange the first Indigenous-led wetland restoration will provide important resiliency and comebacks to this culturally important site. Subsequently monitoring exchanges were conducted between the iwi and Snowchange in December.
We had also exchanges with the Vanuatu work on the community-led small grants and provided support for the first ever wetland and mangrove assessment and restoration in Taumako, Solomon Islands.
In British Columbia, a review of the year and plans for 2026 with the Steering Committee members were discussed. We also visited cedar wetland restoration sites on the Salt Spring Island. As a major important gathering the ELOKA Summit took place in Victoria co-inciding with the release of the ELOKA documentary.
At home in Finland the Sámi teams discovered a new population of freshwater mussels in the Ivalojoki river catchment. The discovery became headline news in Finland given the mussel is critically endangered. Otherwise the Landscape Rewilding Programme and sites in the Climate Breakthrough Initiative advanced with new sites added in Savukoski, Salla, along the Luiro river and in Puolanka. Riihinurkka in Puolanka is a major ecological corridor and a peatland in a landscape of heavy land use. All in all Snowchange-owned lands are now at 8500 hectares and total influence area around 60,000 hectares over 178 sites across the country.
Fishing teams are repairing the winter seines, we wait for the ice and beginning of the seining season and 2026.
Season’s Greetings and See you in 2026!