UNESCO Status
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Advance candidacy for UNESCO world heritage status
Data collection in progress
Koitajoki Watershed
Finland
Problem: The Koitajoki watershed is an iconic Finnish-Russian cross-border river system of huge cultural and ecological importance. It plays a central role in the cultural history of the Karelian region, and Finland more widely, as the origin area of the Kalevala oral poetry tradition, which forms Finland’s founding myth and corpus of folklore. Despite its cultural value, this area is not internationally recognised or legally protected.
Action: Snowchange is making preparations to apply to UNESCO for World Heritage status, which is a very involved process requiring engaging stakeholders, collecting data, and a thorough application process.
Indicator: Snowchange will record a number of successfully completed steps that are integral to the application process. These steps will track Koitajoki’s progress towards world heritage status.
Methods
Data collection is currently under development. As no such process has occured before in Koitajoki, it is a learning process. Expected milestones and methods to track are as follows:
- Identification and preparation of documents required for application
- Minutes of meetings between stakeholders
- Jointly agreed roadmap by 2025 between stakeholders and local authorities
- Jointly agreed draft maps regarding the UNESCO area extent
- All documents prepared by summer 2027
Results
Snowchange is currently working to prepare the documents for its UNESCO application. We will update this page once we have more to share.
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