A near-identical attempt to restructure the State Forest Service took place ten years ago. At the time, the Ministry of Agriculture rejected the reform model proposed by the agency's head, Jānis Kinna, and tasked him with drafting a new one, but received the Director General's resignation instead. Just as now, staff at the time circulated public statements claiming that the reform as drafted would bring ruin and poverty – both to Latvia's forests and to the families of forest wardens. The reform went ahead regardless – by mechanically reducing the number of forest districts and regional offices – and was followed by a long period of stagnation under the leadership of Andis Krēsliņš. Similar reforms also took place in previous years. For comparison, in 1997 the service was territorially divided into 32 regional forest offices with 259 forest districts. By contrast, in 2021 there were 10 regional forest offices and 29 forest districts. This year, everything will change – or so intends Director General Aina Stašāne.
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In recent weeks, both in the Saeima and the Cabinet of Ministers, the thesis has been heard once again: “We must act this way, otherwise there will be penalties, infringement procedures, etc.” Often, such a pseudo-argument completely excludes reasonable disputes, discussions, or alternatives, forcing those responsible to make decisions hastily and not always in the interests of Latvia. Why is that?
Old habits are hardening - someone somewhere knows better, let us rely on them
Lack of sufficient capacity or laziness to defend a different point of view
A generation of cabinet officials has been created who are accustomed to accepting rather than delving into matters
This is a serious problem for Latvia for which no solution is being sought. It will probably be all right somehow...
Another periodic revolution at the State Forest Service
