Events – past and upcoming
### 7th LMSP International Conference "Sustainability of land-use sectors – under the conditions of European environmental policy requirements and geopolitical reality" on 3 November at the Faculty of Forestry, LLU (from 1 September – Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies).
### Sea buckthorn festival is already tomorrow (13 August)
### The European Tree of the Year competition is extended until 4 September.
### The "Minhauzens" hunters' festival took place last weekend
On industry news
And yet – why did you choose a financier, rather than a forester, as the chairman of the board for the state forests?
Because the candidate's management skills and ability to hold everyone together were most important. I understand very well that "Latvijas valsts meži" has been led by one leader and his board team since its foundation. Not like in other state-owned enterprises, where the board changed every five years. Here, there has been one unified team. It must continue like that.
Currently, there are specialists from various fields on the board. Moreover, the board does not work alone; it works together with the company's management team, where colleagues have extensive experience in forestry, subterranean asset management, logistics, and supply chain management.
Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš this week has tasked the Cross-Sectoral Coordination Centre with conducting an independent assessment of whether the nomination process for board and council members of certain state-owned capital companies complies with good corporate governance principles.
The LTRK has expressed support for solutions to compensate residents for the rise in energy prices, while simultaneously emphasising that these must not stimulate the shadow economy or unregistered business activities. The association pointed to the still high proportion of the shadow economy in Latvia – 26.6% of GDP in 2021. LTRK pointed to estimates that there are approximately 250,000 heating units in Latvia in total that use firewood as fuel. Since the government has agreed on a 60-euro subsidy for each such household, the total costs are estimated to be around 15 million euros, a portion of which could end up supporting tax evaders.
"Detailed statistics for the country are available for 2020, and the proportions have likely not changed even now – at that time we were consuming about 8 million loose cubic metres in Latvia, and net exports, or the excess of exports over imports, were approximately 10% of local consumption. Currently, the possibility of importing from Belarus has disappeared, but at the same time our export volumes are falling sharply; if we look at the first 5 months of this year compared to the same period last year, we have now exported even less from the country in total than last year. At the moment, I have no indications that wood chip owners – logging companies or wood processing companies – have entered into large commitments with export markets for the medium or long term, but that does not mean that it could not suddenly happen if there is no possibility to sell these wood chips on the Latvian market under reasonable conditions," admitted Kristaps Klauss.
From 9 August, a new and informative series of programmes is airing on Kurzemes Radio with the aim of explaining the importance and sustainability of Latvian forest management to the public. Eight valuable programmes are planned in total, the main leitmotif of which will be the forest; the programmes are hosted by Adelīna Anna Ziemele, with Dace Blathena as producer.
The production of the Latvian forest industry is competitive, has high added value, and to maintain the development process of the forest industry in Latvia, scientific potential and an appropriate level of human resource skills are needed. Separate programme cycles will be dedicated to the topic of education opportunities in Latvia and abroad, with the aim of informing and encouraging potential forest owners and interested parties to pay attention to the forest industry profession. We will also look at the diversity of Latvian forest fauna – how to preserve a natural balance within it. We will talk about the change in climatic conditions on the planet and its impact on forest quality. And finally, what about human interaction with trees – can trees survive without humans, but humans without trees?
"We have a lot of private houses, and people have long been accustomed to thinking about heating not a year, but two or three years in advance. For a large part, firewood is already provided and in the sheds. Prices have risen just like everywhere else in Latvia; some will need help, but that is the responsibility of the social service and will be handled within the framework of social assistance," Sabile town and Abava parish administration head Zigmunds Brunavs tells me, showing a local newspaper where split firewood is offered for 43 euros per loose cubic metre, and three-metre logs for firewood for 85-87 euros per cubic metre.
On interesting matters
First. If a non-governmental organisation wants to work in a reasonably large-scale and effective manner, it needs financial resources. To attract financial resources, it is crucially important to prove the importance of one's organisation.
To emphasise its value in the eyes of supporters, it is desirable to speak as vividly as possible about the topics that the specific organisation deals with. Even if it requires embellishing the colours and exaggerating. This is the situation with very many organisations in the non-governmental sector.
If you are involved in climate change prevention, it will be useful if you paint the scene as if the collapse of civilisation is expected in just a year. If, on the contrary, you hate the "greens", you will point out to sponsors that because of the "greens", the country's economy is already effectively on the verge of collapse.
In short, the sad truth is that, to put it politely, a selective attitude towards facts is an inseparable part of the operation of some non-governmental organisations.
From this, by the way, other problems also branch off. For example, when Bill Gates announced several years ago that he would invest very large funds into malaria research and eradication, there were experts who warned about the side effects of this generally commendable decision.
Namely, if rich and influential people highlight malaria as a problem, then it can be predicted that other so-called tropical diseases will be neglected, as researchers will also rush to master the "malaria money".
Second. A peculiar logic is also characteristic of organisations working on human rights topics. It is formed roughly like this: It is very important for our work that we are perceived as an objective evaluator. To receive such an evaluation, we must ensure, so to speak, symmetry – if we criticise Russia, then we must also criticise Russia's geopolitical opponents.
In other words, there is not even a need for "influence by the rouble" – a specific understanding of what neutrality means is encoded in the thinking of such organisations. A simplified illustration: at the end of the last century, in the context of the Kosovo crisis, human rights organisations clearly pointed out and criticised the actions of the Serbs against the Albanians.
https://www.lsm.lv/raksts/zinas/latvija/smiltene-varetu-paplasinat-savas-robezas.a468600/
In Smiltene, there is a plan to expand the city boundaries by including several surrounding villages. Along with the administrative-territorial reform, the Smiltene municipality became territorially significantly larger, however, the city of Smiltene is not among the largest in Latvia. Now, there is consideration of expanding Smiltene. According to 2021 data, a little over 5,000 residents live in Smiltene. While developing the new municipal territory plan, the idea has been voiced to change the boundaries of Smiltene city and merge it with several of the nearest populated areas.
From foreign press
Spanish media representatives interview Gundars Kalve
Gundars Kalve: "The future of the war depends on the supply of weapons"
I consider Russia to be the greatest enemy of Eastern Europe and especially the Baltic region. Russia has never brought us anything good and has historically tried to conquer our territory. I have always believed that a repeat of the occupation of Latvia, such as we experienced in 1940, must be avoided by all possible means. Therefore, the war in Ukraine gave me a legitimate opportunity to fight against the occupiers in the most direct way – by killing them. In 2014, I planned to go to Ukraine, but for various reasons, I did not manage to do it until 2018. Since then, I have regularly travelled to Ukraine and met with various units, such as "Azov", which fought in the Donbas border area. Therefore, when the full-scale war started, I had no doubts that I had to get involved in the fight against the Russian occupiers, and on 26 February I left for Ukraine. On 28 February at 8 o'clock in the morning, I arrived at the military commissariat to enlist in the foreign volunteer legion. For the first month, I trained in Lviv, in the ranks of a Georgian battalion, and after that, I was sent to the Azov base in Kyiv to complete military training. Although I am a soldier of the Latvian National Guard and have received quite specific training, skills fade with time, and this training was very useful to me. After training, I joined the Karpatska Sich battalion, which served in Irpin, near Kyiv. Then we fought in Romanivka, a city closer to the capital, defending our artillery units from saboteurs. From there, we were sent to Kharkiv, to the Izium front. Our sector is located near the village of Barvinkove, between Izium and Sloviansk.
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