The visual monitoring of traditional rural biotopes has been carried out at 48 different sites in the regions of Uusimaa and Pirkanmaa in Southern Finland. All of these sites had been classified as nationally valuable in the earlier inventory. The sites were also included in a biodiversity study conducted by the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) in 2000–2004.
At each site the photographs were taken from four individual points. These points were located at each corner of the 50 by 50 meter research area used in SYKE’s biodiversity study. Two photographs were taken from each point, one facing the corner to the left and the other one towards the diagonally opposite corner of the square. Therefore, on each visit eight photos were taken from each site. Below you can find an example series of eight photographs.
All traditional biotopes were initially photographed in the year 2001, and rephotographed during 2006–2007 and 2011–2012. At few sites photographs were also taken at intermediate years.
To date, the traditional rural biotopes have been documented in more than 2 000 photographs, of which ca. 100 are being presented on this web site.