Helmi Habitats Programme (Finland)

The Helmi Habitats Programme (Helmi-elinympäristöohjelma) is a cross-ministerial Finnish Government initiative launched in January 2020 and running until 2030, led by the Ministry of the Environment together with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Metsähallitus, the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) and regional ELY Centres. It targets threatened, non-forest habitats — mires and peatlands, freshwater and wetland habitats, traditional rural biotopes, shore habitats, and small water bodies — largely absent from the earlier METSO forest-biodiversity programme.

The programme's 2030 targets are the protection of 60,000 hectares of mires and the restoration of 59,300 hectares across all non-forest habitat categories. All participation is voluntary: private landowners and municipalities receive direct payments, management agreements or restoration grants for qualifying habitats.

In the first five years (2020-2024), 27,770 hectares of mires were brought under formal protection and 20,877 hectares of degraded mire habitats were actively restored, primarily by blocking drainage ditches and re-establishing natural water levels. SYKE has quantified the climate co-benefits of this mire restoration, which reduces CO2 and CH4 emissions from previously drained peatlands.

Helmi is linked to Finland's National Biodiversity Strategy 2035 and the country's obligations under the EU Habitats Directive and the EU Nature Restoration Law, complementing the METSO programme which covers private-forest biodiversity.