A new Environmental Advisory Council has been set up under the auspices of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development. Its membership is re-elected every year, but this time is particularly notable because the radical green wing has managed to rid itself entirely of the organisations representing the interests of the wider economy. As a result, the public opinion on environmental matters that reaches state institutions — at least from this council — will in future be even less friendly to business.

The alarm about environmental organisations mobilising to squeeze out all manner of inconvenient parties was raised before the elections by the Forest Certification Council of Latvia. Correspondence between members of the outgoing council that made its way into the public domain indicated that a coordinated vote against "lobby organisations hostile to environmental protection" was in prospect. And that is exactly what happened. The council's statutes are drawn up so that things do not get too crowded, and also so that it is always possible to sift out those deemed surplus to requirements. There are places for only 20 members, and in the vote on all the candidates some always end up left out. For example, because one set of anglers is quite enough for the purpose of advising the ministry. Add a second and the conflicts begin.

Elected to the advisory council were the previously represented and publicly known environmental organisations — the Environmental Protection Club, the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Latvian Fund for Nature, the Latvian Anglers Association, Zaļā brīvība and other organisations with effectively kindred aims.

There will be no opposition — those who think differently were not elected: the Latvian Hunters Association, the Latvian Association of Waste Management Companies, the Latvian Association of Hydro-Reclamation Builders, the Latvian Peat Association, as well as the Forest Certification Council of Latvia and several other organisations.

Foresters are sounding the alarm about such discrimination, issuing a statement: "The ministry's advisory council — in the hands of a few environmental organisations." It tells of how several green organisations have grown far too intertwined with one another — paying each other, employing each other's staff, or with the husband in one and the wife in another, or even in the Ministry of the Environment, closer to the source of the money. Yet each of these organisations has a full vote on the council.

The leadership of the Forest Certification Council of Latvia, Jānis Švirksts and Māris Liopa, point out:

"The Environmental Advisory Council in its present form is not and cannot be competent in environmental matters, and it represents the interests of a narrow group, thereby claiming for itself the only correct and exclusive opinion within the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development. The VKP must work for the good of society, and its statutes must be reworked without delay in order to ensure the representation of significant groups in society."

Yet it is unlikely that the rejected candidates will manage to achieve this. The environmental organisations are happy with their closed society, because this is the one format that belongs to them alone. That is how Elita Kalniņa, head of the Environmental Protection Club, explains it to Neatkarīgā. Clearly the peat producers want to dig more, while the greens want peat extraction in the country not to increase. But the opposing camp acts much as the greens do — industrialists do not invite their opponents to their own forums.

Neatkarīgā has already reported that getting into the environmental council was particularly important for foresters, because the mapping of habitats of European importance will begin this year, and in many places the consequence of this may be the removal of forests from economic use.

However, in its statement the Ministry of the Environment offers reassurance that it will still be possible to discuss all questions and that the views of those who did not make it onto the council will also be heard:

"Organisations not elected to the VKP are invited to continue taking part in the work of the VKP and to contribute to VARAM's environmental protection policy-making process."

Daiga Vilkaste, director of the Nature Protection Department, explains to Neatkarīgā that under the law, too, the primary interest of this council's members must be environmental protection. Industry, meanwhile, still has the Forest Advisory Council and the Fisheries Council, farmers have LOSP, and in the end everyone who speaks in the name of the public interest is heard. That, she says, will continue to be the case, although there are no plans to change the statutes of the Environmental Advisory Council.
Based on a publication of 30 January 2017 on nra.lv
https://nra.lv/latvija/199112-vides-organizaciju-klubins-nosargats.htm