29.07.2024
Elo Rasmann, environmental expert
The construction of a railway means that the intended use of the land under construction will change – where there used to be a field or forest, there will be a railway or a theme park in the future. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports prescribe measures to be implemented to mitigate the impact of the railway (including its construction). One such measure is the relocation of the nests of the shrike that are located in front of the construction.
Ants are a family of ants (Formica). There are 7 known species of shrike living in Estonia, all of which are on the list of protected species of category III. The habitat preferences of shrike are known, but there is no overview of where exactly their nests are located.
Therefore, to meet the above-mentioned EIA requirement, it is first necessary to identify how many nests of the ruddy turnstone are located in the Rail Baltica (RB) route corridor. The mapping of the nests of the ruddy turnstone is carried out according to the instructions, which stipulate passing through the RB deforestation area and carefully searching for nests. When moving, you must observe an area of approximately 10 meters wide around you. Each mapping involves two people, who move in parallel.
By the summer of 2024, more than 20 kilometers of railway corridors will have been mapped in this way, mainly in Rapla County. In total, we have found nearly thirty occipital lobes – some of which are small, some very large, some high, some low again, some inside stumps or at the foot of trees, some on open ground, some outside the RB route deforestation area, but most inside. There is still a lot of logging in the forest for mapping purposes, including Iklan.
Once the occipital nests are mapped along the RB route, their relocation must be arranged.
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