Linnansaari

Linnansaari National Park was established in 1956 on Lake Haukivesi, within the Saimaa system, in eastern Finland, and covers 96 km² spread between the main island that gives it its name and hundreds of smaller islands and islets. It is one of the oldest national parks in the country.

The landscape is that characteristic of the Finnish lake district: a sheet of water sown with islands of rock and forest, with shores of twisted pine and outcrops polished by the ice. The island of Linnansaari also preserves an example of traditional slash-and-burn agriculture, kaskiviljely, which the park maintains deliberately because plant and insect communities that are now very scarce depend on it.

Its emblematic species is the Saimaa ringed seal, Pusa hispida saimensis, a freshwater subspecies left isolated in the lake after the last glaciation and one of the most threatened pinnipeds in the world, with a population of barely a few hundred animals. Linnansaari and neighbouring Kolovesi are its main breeding areas, and the park's management includes seasonal restrictions on navigation and on net fishing, as well as building artificial snowdrifts when mild winters prevent the seals from digging their lairs in the snow. The osprey is the park's other characteristic species.