Table 2 The sort of the questions used in the semi-structured interviews exploring people’s TEK

1. To get a general overview of life in the village and understand the informant’s perception of farm life and the changes in local agriculture:

Has life in the village changed in the last few decades? What were the main reasons for such changes? Have farming practices in the villages changed? How do you evaluate these changes? What changes influenced farming practices the most?

2. To understand the relation of people to the wetlands and their value for people:

Was it profitable to have meadows in the wetlands? Did their value change? When did you last go to the wetlands? Have you ever mown with a scythe? How much time did you used to spend in meadows in the past? What would you do there?

3. To learn about traditional farming practices in wetlands:

On what terms did people manage wetlands historically? How did the time of haymaking look in this village? How did people use wetlands, meadows and forests? What did mowing practices look like in the times of hand mowing? How did you build a haystack? When and where did people mow? Why in this particular time and place? When did people stop using the scythe in this village? For what reason? Did you continue to use your meadow after the discontinuation of hand mowing? How has the practice of mowing changed?

4. To learn about grazing practices in the wetland:

Did you have livestock? What animals did you have? Did animals graze in wetlands? Where and when did certain livestock graze? When did the grazing season start and finish? Why? Did animals graze in the wetland forests?

5. To learn what people know about plants and account for observed changes in vegetation:

Which plants grow in wetlands? How do you recognise this plant? Where does this plant grow? Is it a common plant? Did the occurrence of this plant change? What do you think, why? Is this plant good for hay? Did animals graze this plant? Which other plant species were grazed?

6. To recognise the perception of the landscape and toponyms used by people:

Where do the most valuable/the worst plants grow? Where were certain farming practices performed (like mowing, grazing, peat excavation, and fishing)? Where is your own plot located in the wetlands? Where did the mowing start, where did it finish? Where were the haystacks built? Where did you find material for building haystacks?