Region lake contest
The region lake contest (Maakuntajärvikilpailu in Finnish) was held in 2011. It was organized by the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) and Suomi express television program of the Finnish Broadcasting companyt (YLE). Funding was provided by Maa- ja vesitekniikan tuki ry.
The region lakes
Background
In Finland we already had many regional symbols: birds, mammals, fish species, flowers and stones. But no lakes, even though Finns consider their country as the land of thousands lakes. As far as we (the organizers of this contest) know, there are no region lakes in any other country either.
The contest
The procedure of electing regional lakes was divided into two stages.
In the first stage people were asked to suggest and state reasons for lakes they thought would qualify for region lakes. This stage lasted from March 22 to August 15. Altogether some 500 suggestions regarding 151 different lakes were given during this stage.
Based on these suggestions an expert jury nominated three candidate lakes for each region to the second stage of the contest. The expert jury consisted of representatives from the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Regional Councils, the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation and the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE). The chairman of the jury was from the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE).
The second stage was carried out as a sms and postcard voting and it lasted from September 14 to September 30. The lake which collected most votes in each region was announced as a region lake.
Material
- A poster of the final results (A3).pdf (in Finnish)
- The voting card (A5).pdf (in Finnish)
- A poster for the final stage (A3).pdf (in Finnish)
- A poster for the first stage (A3).pdf (in Finnish)
