The city of Joensuu and Karelia UAS promote biodi­ver­sity by taking part in Inter­na­tional Tree Plant­ing Day 24 May 2023

Karelia Univer­sity of Applied Sciences, the city of Joensuu and the ENO online school will plant trees in an event on Wednes­day 24 May 2023 from 9 to 11 am. The venue is the scenic hills of the south­ern part of Sahani­ityn­puisto in Pent­tilä. It is easy to get there by foot, bicycle or public transport.

In Karelia, in the devel­op­ment work of the sustain­able devel­op­ment and respon­si­bil­ity program a commit­ment has been made to plant trees and make a hand­print effect to promote biodi­ver­sity. The higher educa­tion commu­nity of Karelia has played an impor­tant role in the devel­op­ment of the program which was published at March 2023. Karelia invites its students to plant seedlings at the event. The staff will be repre­sented by prin­ci­pal Petri Raivo, head of educa­tion Sanna Kasuri­nen and the sustain­able devel­op­ment and respon­si­bil­ity group.

– Karelia builds a more sustain­able society through educa­tion and research, devel­op­ment and inno­va­tion (RDI). Respon­si­bil­ity is one of our values, and as an employer and higher educa­tion commu­nity, we act respon­si­bly and promote sustain­able devel­op­ment, says Pres­i­dent Petri Raivo.

– We are train­ing the experts of the future to become forestry engi­neers, and our renewed curric­ula give them the knowl­edge and skills of sustain­able devel­op­ment, adds educa­tion manager Sanna Kasurinen.

The event is the forest capital event of the city of Joensuu and part of the activ­i­ties of the inter­na­tional ENO school­net (ENO School­net ry).

– Joensuu is the forest capital of Europe. Bioforestry is one of our top indus­tries, there is top-level exper­tise in digital forestry here, and we are also a large forest owner in the munic­i­pal field. The forest is present in everyone’s every­day life and it is great to have more trees near the river for the joy of the city’s resi­dents, says Sami Laakko­nen, strat­egy direc­tor of the city of Joensuu.

The ENO online school is an inter­na­tional network of sustain­able devel­op­ment schools in North Karelia that helps schools imple­ment envi­ron­men­tal educa­tion into every­day school work. The stan­dard themes of ENO’s activ­i­ties are nature, circu­lar economy, culture and global educa­tion. The most famous envi­ron­men­tal act of the ENO online school is plant­ing trees, which has been done in schools for 20 years. Nepen­mäki school is one of ENO’s spon­sored schools, where activ­i­ties have been carried out through both elemen­tary and middle school spon­sored classes. In this event, we are assisted by Nepen­mäki 2B graders led by class teacher Henna Kinnunen.