3 / 4 Saimaa: its origins, flora and fauna Although the Saimaa region is sparsely populated, it is by no means a wilderness. Its forests have been tended and harvested commercially for a long time, with the exception of national parks and other conservation areas. In the 19th century, extensive tracts were burned under the current slash-and-burn rotation farming practice: once a particular field was exhausted of the nutrients created by the burning, a new area was burned over and the old field allowed to run wild again, eventually growing back into mostly coniferous taiga forest. The fine national parks in the area, Linnansaari and Kolovesi, capture something of the original wilderness. These national parks are also major habitats for the namesake species of the lake system, the Saimaa seal. When the Saimaa basin became separated from the sea, several marine animals were trapped and isolated, eventually developing into separate freshwater species and sub-species. The Saimaa seal is the best-known of these. Without efficient research and The Saimaa seal, a sub-species of the ringed seal, only lives in Saimaa.