Raised Bog Day and photo exhibition “Let’ get acquainted with Latvian Mires”

On September 10, 2007 there was a Raised Bog Day organised by Latvian Fund for Nature in the frame of EC LIFE project “Implementation of Mire Habitat Management Plan for Latvia.

Everyone about the mires has its own memories from the childhood. For one it is a place where to go and pick berries, but for many it is a new unseen and unknown world.

Project partners, stakeholders, teachers from Rīga City and Rīga District schools located more close to the project site Cena Mire, VITILA guides are other interested people were invited.

The Raised Bog Day started in Olaine Museum of History and Art where a photo exhibition  “Let’ get acquainted with Latvian Mires”  was opened. The participants could see also a shot about the nature values of Cena Mire produced by “Documentary Film and Photo Association ELM MEDIA” in the frame of the LIFE project. 

The main part of the Raised Bog day was in Cena Mire that is one of the LIFE project sites. Only in natural mire, it is possible to get acquainted with the mire values. The participants were invited to have a walk along the new nature trail established in the LIFE project. The project experts – entomologist Mārtiņš Kalniņš, ornithologist Aivars Petriņš, botanist and project manager Māra Pakalne guided the excursion. It was stressed that raised bogs are a habitat of priority protection on a European level, in many countries raised bogs have been already destroyed by peat extraction, drainage and other human activities.

One of the main aims of the Raised  Bog Day was to attract teachers and other interested people who in the future could guide excursions along the Cena Mire nature trail and introduce other people with the raised bogs and its inhabitants.

The photo exhibition “Let’s get acquainted with Latvian mires” was opened on a Raised Bog Day at the Olaine Museum of History and Art. In the exhibition 90 photos made by the project experts from various fields are exhibited. Special part of the exhibition is devoted to the round-leaved sundew Drosera rotundifolia that the botanists have elected as plant of the year 2007. Here it is possible to see also small fragments from the raised bog and most characteristic plant species.

Raised Bog Day in Cena Mire and a Photo exhibition in Olaine museum of History and Art.

The Museum of Olaine History and Art is in Olaine, Zemgale Street 33.

Valda Baroniņa
EC LIFE project "Mires" information coordinator

Māra Pakalne
 Project manager

19.09.2007.