Although the number of risks identified within the scope of controlled wood for Latvia has halved since June 2018, the bitterness remains. How was it possible that an EU member state could be rated lower than authoritarian Belarus? Much like representatives of a country in any specific organisation, union, or other institution within the European Parliament, they should defend their country's interests. However, this does not always happen, including regarding the activities of certain certification representatives in Latvia. There are several ways to ensure the representation of certification systems.
For example, in the case of PEFC certification, it is not possible to initiate forest management certification under the specific scheme if a local PEFC Council has not been established, which represents various interest groups and creates the PEFC Forest Management standard.
In the case of FSC or SBP certification, only a standard to audit against is required. Representation, while theoretically possible in the form of both a legal entity and an individual, is not a prerequisite for beginning certification.
Since 2013, we have gone from the highest form of FSC national representation in Latvia – an FSC Office (a legal entity), which was composed of approximately 20 organisations representing the Environmental, Social, and Economic chambers – to losing even the lowest form of representation, the status of National Representative (an individual), within five (5) years. We are now under the management of the newly established FSC Baltic Region, led by the head of the FSC Estonia office, Indrek Talpsepp, while the previous Latvian representative, I. Krūze, who has no forestry education, has become an FSC forest project coordinator.
In FSC processes, there is a palpable concentration of power in the hands of a few individuals who are capable of ensuring decision-making but who hinder the transparency of processes and the trust of companies in this system. Even more paradoxical is the fact that, after more than 15 years of the history of FSC forest management certification in Latvian forests, the situation has allegedly deteriorated significantly, at least according to the publicly available and FSC-approved risk assessments. These state that illegal logging prevails in forests managed by Latvian private owners and municipalities and that high-value forests are being destroyed. Previously, such shortcomings were not identified in Latvia.
Metastases for new interpretations appeared as early as 2015, when the Latvian Biomass Association (LATBio) allowed the application of the as-yet-unapproved SBP Regional Risk Assessment to Latvia. At that time – early 2016 – the LMSP sharply criticised the norm adopted within the framework of SBP certification: working according to an unapproved risk assessment and applying the LATBio Habitat Tool as an effectively inseparable tool of the certification process and compliance assessment.
The discussions initiated by the LMSP regarding the LATBio “tool”, which acts contrary to national legislation, were also attended by representatives of the Forest Owners Association of Latvia, who, knowing full well the circumstances of what was happening and the expected consequences, did not raise the alarm among private forest owners following the approval of the FSC Controlled Wood standard. Meanwhile, during the conference organised by the European Biomass Association (AEBIOM) (European Bioenergy Future 2016), AEBIOM took the opportunity to officially announce the election of the new association president and board. The chairman of the LATBio board, Didzis Palejs, was elected as the new AEBIOM president, replacing Gustav Melin (SVEBIO, Sweden), who had led the organisation for six years.
In this situation, the country is crying out for the defence of its true interests – an advocate who represents the interests of the State of Latvia, rather than the interests of individual persons or organisations. As a prosecutor, the certification system detects violations in Latvia, but there is no opportunity to defend oneself because there is no representation. Along with the weakening of FSC representation, a reduction in FSC-certified territories is observable in Latvia. This, of course, has been largely influenced specifically by the partial withdrawal of JSC Latvijas valsts meži from the FSC certification system, but this time, unlike in 2010, it happened with the company itself carefully weighing the decision, rather than basing it on the results of audits.