Nature conservationFrom home

My father founded the Young Nature Conservationists’ Club (NLK) at the Lahemaa branch of the Estonian Nature Conservation Society. Answering advertisements in the newspaper Säde, children came from all over Estonia to camps and hikes to learn about nature. The club’s first surviving chronicle dates from 1983.

NLK chronicle 1983 (PDF, 32 MB, in Estonian)

Lahemaa National Park and I are the same age: the national park was founded in 1971 as the first in the Soviet Union.

In the 1970s my father recorded conference talks and conversations of Lahemaa National Park. For the park’s 50th anniversary in 2021 these recordings were digitised and edited with the support of the Käsmu Maritime Museum (Aarne Vaik) and the Environmental Board (Ave Paulus); I led the project.

In 2016 the Estonian Nature Conservation Society and its partners recorded stories of the creation of Lahemaa: interviews with people connected with the founding and early years of the national park, and a conference held at Palmse Manor. I was one of the authors of the videos. In total there are almost a hundred videos online.

For the 55th anniversary in 2026 I tracked down the Lenin quotation that was cited when Lahemaa was founded. It became a story of its own.

Stories of Lahemaa – recordings by Juhan Lepik (YouTube, in Estonian) · Stories of the creation of Lahemaa (YouTube, in Estonian) · ELKS: Stories of the creation of Lahemaa

Lenin’s decree and Lahemaa

A Short History of the Druzhina Movement (Краткая история Движения ДОП, on the student nature protection squads). Edited by Sergei Mukhachev and Svyatoslav Zabelin. Moscow: RÄFIA, NIA-Priroda, 2003, 200 copies.

I made a three-column machine translation of the book into Estonian: machine translation PDF. Original: priroda.ru.

I have come across references saying that Svyatoslav Zabelin died on 10.10.2026.

Encouraged by Leo Filippov, I started compiling a timeline of the history of nature conservation in Estonia. The work is still in progress; so far two parts have been collected:

• The 1973 handbook “Looduskaitse” (“Nature Conservation”) (compiled by Eerik Kumari, Valgus, 836 pages). The book has been scanned, but its content has not yet been worked through.
• Memories of Arvo Veskimets about marine nature conservation: how supervision of the sea and the coast was organised and what pollution incidents there have been. They were written down in October 2026 and still await confirmation from sources.

The plans are big.

Handbook “Looduskaitse” 1973 (PDF, 493 MB, in Estonian)

I was involved with Looduskalender (“Nature Calendar”), founded by Gennadi Skromnov in 2002, from the very beginning. I persuaded Gennadi to move the portal to the Drupal platform, which made live pictures from nature cameras possible, and I introduced him to Kaido Einama, who for years became the portal’s main developer.

My work at Looduskalender:

• Mushroom camera (2011): next to a coral fungus growing in Võru County, a camera photographed the growth of the mushroom every day, and the photos were made into videos. Virumaa Teataja 24.08.2011
• Fish camera at the Põlula fish farming centre (2014–2017): a live underwater picture of salmonids spawning. The technical solution was made by IT Rotid, with help from EENet, the RMK Põlula fish farming centre and, with the lighting, Rein Maran. The fish camera starts (2014) · Virumaa Teataja 24.10.2016 · Fish camera (2017)
• J. G. Granö, “Eesti maastikulised üksused” (“The landscape units of Estonia”): digitising one of the most important texts of Estonian geography on the portal. Looduskalender: Eesti maastikulised üksused
• Urmas Tartes’s discussions with environment ministers: web broadcasts in which Urmas Tartes, chairman of the Nature Conservation Commission of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, discussed the fundamentals of nature and environmental protection with new ministers. Erkki Savisaar, 03.12.2021 · Madis Kallas, 10.08.2022

In 2004–2010 I worked at Jaan Riis’s publishing house Looduskiri. Its brands were Looduse Omnibuss (“Nature Omnibus”), the nature evenings at the National Library, Nature Photo of the Year and the magazine Loodus. We moved sales and advertising to the internet, the website and the newsletter, although the Omnibus travellers were mostly pensioners who did not use e-mail.

looduseomnibuss.ee · Work and ventures

MTÜ Loodusring organises nature trips and nature education for Tallinn schoolchildren. Two of my initiatives have come to life under Loodusring: Rein Maran’s film school and the birdsong mornings.

loodusring.ee

In 2008 I brought together the nature filmmaker Rein Maran and MTÜ Loodusring and launched a free nature film course for young people. Ten evening sessions were held at the Tallinn Cinema House from 5 February to 8 April. It started with the video camera and finding one’s own subject, continued with film language and with landscape, plant, bird, game and insect films, and at the end the participants saw how filmed footage becomes an edited film with sound. The course was meant mainly for 10–18-year-olds, and more than a hundred young people took part.

The project was organised by Loodusring, the Tallinn Environment Department and the Tallinn Cinema House. In spring 2009 it continued at the Cinema House as a five-part series “Loodusfilmi ABC” (“The ABC of Nature Film”).

Environmental education in Tallinn 2006–2010 (in Estonian) · Loodusfilmi ABC 2009 (in Estonian)

The birdsong mornings were my idea. They were launched together with the Tallinn Environment Department: in spring, on May mornings, Loodusring takes classes from Tallinn schools to listen to birdsong. Classes sign up through Loodusring, and the project has lasted for years.

loodusring.ee

Looduskaitse Tribüün (“Nature Conservation Tribune”) was a shared information space for Estonian nature conservationists: a mailing list and daily media reviews.

My mailing list is in Estonian; the posts are listed here in their original language.

Tiit Lepik’s mailing list archive