08.10.2008 - Family day at the State Forest Management Centre was attended by almost 600 people 05.10

On 4 October, the State Forest Management Centre (RMK) organised a family day “Friends with the Forest” in West-Viru County, which was attended by almost 600 people. The most popular activities were the forest medal and wooden spoon workshops; in the latter, more than 370 spoons were made.

The aim of the family day was to improve the nature-awareness of people through active family recreation and to introduce possibilities for hiking in nature, and sustainable forest recreation. At the event, sportive and nature education activities were offered as well as various hands-on activities at the workshops.

About 300 people attended the instructed trips and programmes, 150 people solved independent tasks and the “Friends with the Forest” training was passed by 123 people. Taking photos with the mascots of RMK, the Hare and the Fox, also turned out to be very popular – 82 photos were taken.

The cycling trails for the family day were set according to abilities – 3 km and 17 km. The longer cycling trail was diverse, passing by interesting natural and architectural sites, and received very positive feedback from the cyclists. Some people even went hiking on the 17 km trail.

200 people participated in Nordic walking and hiking trips. The trails were diverse, of different lengths and suitable for everybody. Most of the people took the 3.5 km trail, families with smaller children took the 1.4 km trail and the people who wanted to get a greater workout chose the 6 km trail.

Orienteering turned out to be surprisingly popular, attended mainly by children, who were very happy to look for points in the forest and punch marks on the card. Some took orienteering as a competition, running through the trail as fast as possible, some read the map and carefully looked for the control points.

At the basic training for orienteering, the ideas behind the orienteering map and the rope trail were introduced, and an example with the sign O and a punch was set up. All who were interested learned the basics of using a compass and were allowed to use the compasses of the organisers on the trails as well. The basic training for orienteering and the rope trail were attended by 150 people.

The success of the event was contributed to by excellent weather and a diverse programme. RMK would like to thank all participants and expects feedback from family day participants to the address metsasoberrmk.ee.

The photos taken during the “Friends with the Forest” family day can be viewed at the website of RMK at www.rmk.ee/en