On 24 October 2023, the Friends of Malmi Airport association (FoMA) has filed a complaint with the EU Commission regarding the ignored natural values of Malmi Airport and its surroundings as well as the ignored requirements of EU legislation in zoning and in the related appeals processes.
Several EU directive species and species specially protected in national legislation are found in the area, but they have been ignored in the Uusimaa regional plan, Helsinki general plan, and in the town plans drawn up so far. The numerous administrative appeals made at different stages of zoning have been rejected at all levels of court, partly in conflict with previous jurisprudence, and the protection proposals made to the Uusimaa ELY Center and the legislative initiative signed by 56 MPs in 2019 to annex the area to the Sipoonkorpi National Park have not led to anything.
Assessments of the area’s natural values made in connection with zoning are seriously incomplete for many classes of organisms. In some cases these assessments have been initiated only after zoning plan decisions have already been made. Zoning-related assessments of directive species and especially protected species focus on small patches of land without taking into account the importance of the wide and diverse natural environment for their vitality.
Investigations made with more precise methods, demonstrating e.g. the widespread presence of flying squirrels in the forests surrounding the area, have been ignored both in zoning and in courts. In the meantime, the City of Helsinki has begun to weaken and destroy the natural values of the area it has itself defined as valuable meadows and forests, without intervention from law enforcement despite investigation requests.
“When rejecting complaints filed against the neglect of nature values, the courts have repeatedly shifted the responsibility for taking nature values into account to the next planning level, and nothing concrete has resulted from that to protect the habitats of directive species and especially protected species,” says the Chairman of FoMA, Mr. Håkan Lövdahl.
“As sad as it is to have to complain, there doesn’t seem to be any other way to save Malmi’s natural treasure from the intended destruction,” states Lövdahl. “Now the matter must be brought to the EU level.”
EU legislation requires strict protection of the species defined in the bird and wildlife directives. Ignoring Malmi’s significant natural values at all planning levels and all levels of court has shown that Finnish law and jurisprudence cannot be at the level required by EU legislation.
Content of the complaint
The area of Helsinki-Malmi Airport is an entity of more than 100 hectares of meadow nature and the natural forests surrounding it. Its biodiverse nature with directive species has been documented in numerous assessments and studies. It is an important bird habitat officially defined in the City of Helsinki’s nature value maps, a valuable site of the City’s meadow network and also an important stopover site for migratory birds. Habitats and breeding grounds for directive species are found on the meadows as well as in the forests surrounding the area. Malmi Airport also leads the waters of an extensive catchment area through Longinoja, a restored trout brook, to the Vantaanjoki Natura 2000 area, home to one of Europe’s most significant thick-shelled river mussel colonies. The thick-shelled river mussel is a EU nature directive species and under Finnish legislation a highly endangered species under strict protection.
Several directive species can be found in the natural forests surrounding the airport area, e.g. the flying squirrel, white-backed woodpecker (under strict protection) and several species of bats (northern bat, Nathusius’ pipistrelle, parti-colored bat). The wide, unlit meadow is an important feeding area and passageway for bats, and the forests have been verified as flying squirrel habitat containing core areas. According to experts, the meadows are the most important migratory resting place in Finland and possibly also a nesting place of the great snipe, a bird directive species and in national legislation a critically endangered species under strict protection.
For decades, the goal of the City of Helsinki has been to repurpose the airport area for residential construction. The project has progressed significantly in the 2010s, and the latest general plan (2016) allots the area to massive residential construction, ignoring the requirements of the EU Nature and Birds Directives and thus violating EU legislation.
The general plan gained legal force in 2019 after the Supreme Administrative Court rejected the complaints regarding the area of Malmi Airport by a voting decision, contrary to the proposal of the rapporteur and, in terms of nature values, contrary to earlier case-law. The Supreme Administrative Court does not justify its decisions, which is questionable in terms of citizens’ legal protection, especially when it comes to an unusual voting decision. A complaint about this has been made to the EU Court of Human Rights in 2019.
The nature values of the airport’s meadows and surrounding forests have only been partially mapped. For example, no studies have been carried out for, e.g., ground-dwelling insects, molluscs, arachnids, amphibians and small mammals (e.g. the birch mouse, a directive species observed on site). Despite requests, a comprehensive environmental impact assessment procedure has not been initiated. In the City’s nature assessments, the focus is on small patches of individual protected species, ignoring the large and biodiverse natural environment that is essential to their vitality.
Meadows are a nationally critically endangered habitat type. More than 85% of Malmi Airport’s meadows are still planned to be destroyed, even though the City of Helsinki has elsewhere within its limits a confirmed housing construction reserve that clearly exceeds its own long-term population estimates. The same fate awaits the surrounding natural forests. When construction possibly begins, the sludge released from the stabilization of the area’s tens-of-meters deep, sulfuric acid forming sulfate clay will enter through Longinoja into the Vantaanjoki Natura 2000 area, a habitat of the thick-shelled river mussel.
The first town plans in the southern part of the area have gained legal force in 2023 after the Supreme Administrative Court refused to hear complaints about them, rejected by the Helsinki Administrative Court. In recent years, the City of Helsinki has destroyed flying squirrel habitats in the surrounding forests several times, even from the officially defined core area of the species without a mandatory deviation permit from the ELY center. The Helsinki Police Department has not initiated investigations of the destruction of natural values despite several requests.
The City and the courts have ignored the flying squirrel studies carried out using more precise methods in the forests south of the airport, where numerous flying squirrel observations were made in a much wider area than in the City’s own investigations. The reports indicating the widespread presence of the flying squirrel in the zoned areas to the south were submitted to the City before the approval of the town plans, and were also brought to the attention of the administrative courts during the appeals process.
In the meadows of the airfield that form the largest valuable site of the meadow network in Helsinki (100 hectares, 1/6 of the entire capital’s meadows), the gradual destruction of nature values has begun. The City has repeatedly mowed more than 13 hectares of the meadows in violation of the Nature Conservation Act in the middle of the birds’ nesting season, for the purpose of “possible public events” that have not taken place. Reports and photographic evidence submitted to the police about birds’ nests and chicks destroyed with lawnmowers have not led to investigations. In the northern part of the area, the City is currently planning by an administrative decision a snow-dumping area that would destroy meadow nature and stopover resting places of the strictly protected great snipe. The parti-colored bat, a very rare migratory species in Finland, has been observed for many years at the edge of the forest right next to the area slated to be buried under the snow dump.
Courts have repeatedly justified their decisions to reject appeals on the grounds that the protected values will be taken into account in more detailed planning. However, even in the detailed zoning plans, nature values have not been taken into account in the manner intended by the EU directives. In some cases, the court rulings have also been in contradiction to previous case-law.
Despite requests, the Uusimaa ELY Center has not initiated a thorough environmental impact assessment procedure for the large area and its significant natural values. The legislative initiative signed by 56 members of Parliament in 2021 to annex the area of Malmi Airport to Sipoonkorpi National Park was delayed in the parliamentary committees for so long that it lapsed with the parliamentary elections in the spring of 2023.
In order to save Malmi Airport’s natural values, protected by both national legislation and EU directives, all national-level appeals processes have been followed through to the end in an effort to prevent the large-scale destruction planned by the City of Helsinki, but the Finnish judiciary has not intervened or has not been able to intervene. It is evident that Finnish law and jurisprudence cannot be at the level required by EU legislation in terms of the protection of nature values.
The gradual weakening and destruction of the irreplaceable nature, habitats and breeding places of directive species at Malmi Airport and its surroundings is already underway, and according to the City’s estimates, the destruction of the flying squirrel forests surrounding the area to make way for street construction is planned to start already at the end of 2023.
Supporting documents (in Finnish) – see Finnish page