The question of climate change and land use in Latvia resurfaces in public debate from time to time. Recently, experts from Latvijas Banka have become closely involved in speculating about these topics. Setting aside methodological nuances and rivalry between researchers, what is often troubling is the authors' failure to engage with the substance of the matter – sustainable land use is part of the solution, not the problem. And that holds not only in Latvia, but in Europe and across the world, if only we are willing to face the truth.

If we base the achievement of climate targets on abandoning management across ever larger areas, we are essentially choosing to bury our heads in the sand – in the short term GHG emissions fall, but in the medium and longer term we lose the potential to sequester more and to live more circularly. In doing so we prolong the use of fossil resources, which is fundamentally unsustainable. By choosing that path, we forgo the opportunities offered by a modern bioeconomy, which is the genuine solution for humanity if we are not to devour the planet.

The authors of the article series argue that overly intensive logging is the main reason why the land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector in Latvia has, in recent years, turned from a net sink into a net emitter. And that logging must therefore be reduced as far as possible – untouched forests will supposedly be best at sequestering carbon. But is that really so?

Nature makes corrections. Climate change makes corrections

If we look at the substance of the matter, logging is merely the most visible part of far larger processes in nature – the climate is changing in Latvia and in Europe, and the structure of our forests is changing as a result. Insect damage and storms, for example, have forced an increase in logging, and the timber obtained is hardly of the highest quality – hence the next reproach, that the forest sector exports fuel and is unable to grow added value.

Yet if such timber is not removed from the forest in good time, it places an additional burden on the forest ecosystem – trees felled by storms and infested by insects soon die and themselves become a source of emissions, preventing a new and healthy forest from developing.

And even where insects or storms have not yet devastated the forest, stands in certain forest types (spruce forests aged 50 years and over, for instance) have matured under the influence of climate change, and growing them on any longer carries additional risk. The most sensible course would be to obtain a high-value timber harvest from them now, rather than firewood later, and to plant in their place a new and healthy forest adapted to climate change and to modern demand for renewable resources.

But outdated sectoral regulation, grounded in an obsolete understanding of forestry, of the uses of wood products and of the forest cycle as a whole, prevents us from acting according to the actual situation on the ground.

That is precisely why managed forest must not be left free of human influence – we have to help it adapt to climate change. Through sensible legislation and professional decisions taken on the spot in the forest, not in the offices of officials or ideologues. A managed forest is not merely an isolated ecosystem for nature's sake. It is an essential resource for addressing questions vital to humanity's survival and development, such as how to genuinely live more circularly and to reduce the use of fossil resources more rapidly.

The missing element in the equation

If the goal is an abstract reduction of emissions and an increase in biodiversity, what we end up with is a fine wish list that cannot realistically be fulfilled without including humanity's own needs in the story. After all, nature conservation requires money too.

The missing element is precisely sustainable land use for economic purposes, so that renewable resources can be chosen in place of fossil ones. The LULUCF sector offers just such a solution: grow it, harvest it and use it for as long as possible (depending on the type of biomaterial), and then begin the cycle anew. That means purposefully growing resources rather than digging them out of the depths of the earth. We must therefore act responsibly and set targets not only for 5 or 10 years, but for the longer term as well. By forcing the pace on LULUCF targets in Latvia, we prolong the use of fossil resources elsewhere in the world, allowing developed countries to carry on emitting and to do nothing for genuine nature conservation.

In Latvia, the bioeconomy accounts for a fifth of all added value in the national economy and half of all goods exports. In the regions these figures are higher still, and they demonstrate that the bioeconomy is not merely a sectoral matter. It is an essential part of the whole of society's welfare, of social security and of national security too. The bioeconomy has substantial capital at its disposal with which to shape our common future in a national and responsible way. In order to raise the value of future bioresources (timber and other resources that can be grown on our land), and thereby increase their own income as well, every landowner has a duty to take the long view and to invest the capital accumulated in innovation.

As the largest landowner, AS “Latvijas valsts meži” (LVM) has great potential to make Latvia a bioeconomy powerhouse, for example by developing innovations in the chemical processing of wood in order to replace materials of fossil origin. Unfortunately, Latvia will not be able to escape the “middle income trap” if it regards LVM merely as a “money machine” for meeting various budgetary needs:

# Such an approach sustains classic wood processing (essentially sawn timber production), but does nothing to encourage innovation in wood fibre and chemical processing, which have the potential for even more rapid development in the future

# The “sawmill business model” is already capital-intensive and is essentially geared to maintaining its own productivity. What is more, many of the decisions are not taken in Latvia

Planning development in a national and responsible way

When it comes to economic development, our society and our officials are often given to wishful thinking – surely we will invent our own Nokia, Skype or something of the sort (given that those two have already sunk into oblivion), and can largely do without “grubby” industrial manufacturing.

Unfortunately, reality shows that a few “unicorns” are not enough to feed a nation, and that it is premature to write off some rather good industrial “dinosaurs”. Take those very sawn timber producers, who are among the leaders in generating export revenue for our country. Even a plank is a sufficiently high-value product, one that goes on to be built into European homes in place of concrete or metal. It is therefore part of the sustainable construction solution.

It is at times surprising to see the public views of responsible institutions – in this case Latvijas Banka – calling into question, or even disparaging, the role of the bioeconomy (including LULUCF) in our country's development. How are the sectors to plan their further development if these are the discouraging signals they receive?

In striving for better opportunities for Latvia to take its place in global bioeconomy chains, and to involve researchers and education professionals actively in the process, we sometimes encounter inertia at national level and, on occasion, even resistance from policymakers. Take the use of wood as a renewable material in construction. In Latvia this took several decades (legal framework, education system and so on), whereas in the Nordic countries and Central Europe modern wooden buildings and infrastructure have long been built and continue to spread, thanks to state-backed initiatives such as the New European Bauhaus [1].

Why are renewable resources so important?

Nature can get by without people. But people cannot get by without nature. It is true that a wholly natural forest ecosystem is climate-neutral in the long run: it gives back through decay as much as it takes up through growth. It is only people who have a choice – to leave the timber in the forest, or to use it to meet their needs. As regards human needs, it is important to understand the causal relationship – nobody consumes a wooden beam because it has been produced; on the contrary, a wooden beam is produced because consumption demands it. And consumption can take different forms, because every product has a substitute. For a wooden beam, that would be a steel beam. To be fair about humanity's overall impact on nature, or its “ecological footprint”, the emissions arithmetic must be viewed more broadly than the LULUCF sector alone.

Rough estimates suggest that producing a wooden beam generates 2–5 times less CO₂ equivalent than producing an equivalent metal beam. Alongside this, a wooden beam stores biogenic carbon throughout its service life, which runs to several decades, whereas a metal beam only generates emissions. So by choosing biomaterials, we reduce emissions in other sectors of human activity and thereby secure our welfare in a far more responsible way. That is how we can genuinely move closer, over the long term, to climate neutrality for humanity as a whole – making the world better for people and for nature alike.

A place for everything

To provide Latvian society with both prosperity and the chance to live in a pleasant environment, the state must balance economic development against biodiversity and climate goals. In 2025, the University of Latvia (the country's leading interdisciplinary academic institution) published a study, “An economic assessment of the potential for balanced development of Latvia's forest sector and development scenarios” [2], which proposes introducing a “70-20-10” stratification principle in land use (10% – strict protection, 20% – multifunctional use, 70% – productive commercial use employing innovative and science-intensive methods), in order to maximise public benefit and reduce the conflict society perceives between economic and ecological interests.

If we as a society agree to withdraw 10% of the country's area from economic circulation and to reduce productivity across 20% of the area (in terms of time and biomass), compensating mechanisms are needed to raise productivity on the remaining 70%. In forestry that means a science-intensive approach, one that makes it possible to grow timber faster, in greater quantity and of better quality.

We invite everyone to work together on putting this approach into practice, so that all our society's goals can be achieved sensibly and in a balanced way. Without an “inflated” conflict and unhealthy rivalry, with each party aware of its own field of activity and committed to achieving high-quality goals within it. The much-discussed “10-20-70 stratification principle” is the only realistic way to pursue both directions at once.