The ABCGheritage Project: A Tool for Geo-Education

Abstract

Geological tourism and related business opportunities are growing in the Barents area. To be able to develop this sector of tourism in a sustainable way, a cooperative project called “ABCGheritage—Arctic Biological, Cultural and Geological Heritage” has been created. The project is partly financed by the EU Kolarctic ENPI programme. In the geological heritage part of the project, the three main participants are the Geological Survey of Finland (Northern Finland Office), the Geological Institute of the Kola Science Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Bioforsk Soil and Environment from north eastern Norway. The duration of the project is from 2012 to 2014. The main method for cherishing geological heritage is to raise the awareness of participants in the nature tourism sector about geology. It is also important to engage young people in the area to support the sustainable use of geological recreation areas. This can be achieved by educating the target groups of the project. Other examples of ways to protect geological recreation sites include a geological outdoor map. When such a map of an area is created, it guides tourists to travel along the safe and environmentally friendly routes. In this project, a geological outdoor map will be prepared for the Khibiny Tundra area located in the middle of the Kola Peninsula. Geological heritage trails with information panels will also be produced for some key areas. In total, there are ten different activities in the geological part of the project. The primary outputs of the project’s geological heritage part are the geological outdoor map of Khibiny Tundra, the geological nature trails in the field, geological demonstration sites with signposting, and educational packages of geological heritage targeted at school students, teachers, and personnel working in nature tourism.