Nature preservation in Kakumäe.
Who owns nature?

The current global climate-changing crisis requires us to look more seriously into the topic of nature preservation, how to execute nature protection, and to research this issue through the prism of laws, state strategies and policies. More specifically, this project contributes to research and understanding of what it means to preserve nature in an urban environment. The site for the project, the Kakumäe district of Tallinn (Estonia) was selected.

This project looks at the issue of nature preservation through nature ownership and unpacks what nature is in Kakumäe. The continued rapid growth of the Kakumäe population leads to the extension of the urban fabric to create a new architectural environment through its expansion across the natural environment of this area. As a result of these transformations, the already fragile ecosystem in Kakumäe is being disrupted. The issue of nature protection in an urban context requires not only studying the aspects of nature protection itself, but also considering strategies, plans, tools and existing laws on this issue within the framework of the legislation of the Republic of Estonia and the municipality of Tallinn. It is also very important to analyze existing information regarding the current land ownership situation in the Kakumäe area, the structure of the urban fabric and an understanding of the typology of the architectural environment and how this environment interacts and influences the existence of the natural environment around it.

As Cindi Katz points out in her work “WHOSE NATURE, WHOSE CULTURE? Private productions of space and the “preservation” of nature ”, in the capitalist world, nature has become not only an object of research and study, but also a valuable “investment” with a huge potential to have economic profit in the future[1], and since such potential is seen in Kakumäe, this project tries to answer key questions such as: Who decides what should be preserved and why? Why is it important to preserve nature in Kakumäe? What does nature preservation mean in an urban context?