When nature is improved too much, business activity can come to a standstill. True or false? Examples from the construction industry show that regulation can, at worst, complicate or prevent solutions that support biodiversity.
In the construction industry, nature and business overlap in a surprising way. For example, rock quarry areas create habitats for rare species, and the critically endangered barn swallow has nested in rock piles for decades. The coexistence has worked well – and the industry is proud of it.
The revised Nature Conservation Act is causing problems. Based on this, the authorities are urging companies to prevent the formation of nests, especially multi-year nesting sites, because once these are created, they must not be touched again. Suitable nesting sites for barn swallows are literally under a rock, but companies are being urged to ensure that the rock piles are free of nests.
There are also pioneering companies in Finland that are doing long-term work for the benefit of nature. One of these companies, Rudus, has years of experience in coordinating aggregate production and nature.
The company in Kråkö, Porvoo, has been developing nature values for 15 years with the aim of combining the controlled use of aggregates and the strengthening of biodiversity. The approach is in line with the construction industry's biodiversity roadmap, which emphasizes a shift from minimizing harm to measurable improvement of the state of nature.
The regulatory environment should encourage the creation of natural values as part of business operations and enable the coordination of production and nature.
The work in Kråkö yielded results. Among other things, habitats were created for valuable species such as cape frogs and rare dragonflies, for which the vital ponds had previously been overgrown. The plan was to proceed in stages so that the living conditions of the species would be secured throughout the entire period of rock extraction, until finally the area would be restored to a more diverse environment. Paradoxically, however, the natural values made possible by the builder now threaten to prevent the project from progressing through the permit process.
In the examples described, companies are prevented from promoting biodiversity in the very way they are encouraged to do. The situation is very contradictory.
The protection of existing nature must be the starting point for human activity, and construction or the extraction of rock materials to serve it should not be directed to areas where there are already protected species. When a company itself produces natural values in its operations, however, this must not become an obstacle to the continuation of the operation. On the contrary: we need a regulatory environment that encourages the creation of natural values as part of business operations and enables the responsible coordination of production and nature.
In the aggregates industry, all this is not just theory. Workers and barn swallows have been living side by side for decades. In Porvoo, eastern cherry flies and spotted pond flies thank the pond builders.
This mutually beneficial balance should not be disturbed. If regulations do not recognize and enable the coordination of construction and nature, both nature and business will disappear.
See also
- A condensed version of the article in the Reader's Opinion of Helsingin Sanomat on April 16.4th
- More information about the Porvoo Kråkö project at rudus.fi
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