Nature
Alam-Pedja Nature Reserve covers large portion of the Võrtsjärv Basin, a vast bowl-like lowland area, which following the last Ice Age was inundated by the waters of Lake Big Võrtsjärv. When the lake formed in early Holocene the water level was 4–5 m higher than today. The lake started receding after 7500 BP, when an outflow to the east developed via the Emajõgi Valley.
The nature reserve is largely a wetland, including a complex of five large bogs and floodplains of the large rivers (Emajõgi, Põltsamaa and Pedja). Wetlands cover 82% of the nature reserve's territory. The only types of lakes found in the nature reserve are oxbow lakes and more than 2000 bog pools. Lots of floodplain meadows have traditionally used for haymaking. However, in recent decades the extent of floodplains mowed has greatly decreased, threatening species associated with such valuable semi-natural landscapes. Continuing management of floodplain meadows is one of the main aims of the nature reserve.
Most of the forest in Alam-Pedja are also wet. Alluvial broadleaf and old-growth forests are particularly valuable.
Alam-Pedja is the most important breeding area for Great Snipe in Estonia and the Baltic countries. Greater Spotted Eagle is another threatened bird species breeding in the area.
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Famous quotes containing the word nature:
“The wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not the less true, though they may not recommend themselves to the sense which is most common among Englishmen and Americans to-day. It is not every truth that recommends itself to the common sense. Nature has a place for the wild clematis as well as for the cabbage. Some expressions of truth are reminiscent,—others merely sensible, as the phrase is,—others prophetic.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As nature requires whirlwinds and cyclones to release its excessive force in a violent revolt against its own existence, so the spirit requires a demonic human being from time to time whose excessive strength rebels against the community of thought and the monotony of morality ... only by looking at those beyond its limits does humanity come to know its own utmost limits.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“As I sat before the fire on my fir-twig seat, without walls above or around me, I remembered how far on every hand that wilderness stretched, before you came to cleared or cultivated fields, and wondered if any bear or moose was watching the light of my fire; for Nature looked sternly upon me on account of the murder of the moose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)