According to Metsähallitus, as the number of outdoor activities increases, so does the number of accidents.
During this year, Metsähallitus’ lot control has had to deal with more than 500 cases where the game rules for lot camping have not been followed.
More than a hundred cases resulted in fines, 44 fines were recorded and almost the same number of criminal reports were recorded. The others got away with a note.
Batch inspectors and supervisors checked about 10,000 walkers who were out in nature in state areas. The majority of them were fishermen and hunters, but the batch control also inspected hikers and supervised off-road traffic.
Batch surveillance was again at its busiest in summer and autumn, when thousands of batch goers and other people moving around in nature were inspected every month. In the summer, lot control is kept busy by fishermen and hikers, in the fall by hunters. Batch control inspected approximately 3,100 fishermen or their gear and 3,500 hunters.
The information on defects revealed during the inspection will be collected in a batch inspection report, which will be published early next year.
Most of the state-owned lands are located in Northern and Eastern Finland.