On 26 November this year, the Ministry of Agriculture reiterated that the collection and compilation of information on the distribution and quality of habitats of EU importance (habitat mapping) does not affect activities permitted in accordance with regulatory enactments. Forestry activities in habitats registered in the nature data management system “Ozols” are limited only if the territory has a protection status determined by a regulatory enactment or administrative act, for example, if a specially protected nature territory has been established or a micro-reserve has been designated. When administering the issuance of logging permits, the protection feature specified in the regulatory enactments must be taken as the basis. Upon receiving an application for final felling, the State Forest Service is not required to verify whether the forest stand is recognised as a habitat of EU importance and registered in the Nature Conservation Agency’s nature data management system “Ozols”.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Agriculture mentioned that it does not comment on requirements that are binding for companies under forest certification schemes. (https://www.lmsp.lv/par-sertifikaciju-un-dabas-datu-parvaldibas-sistemu-ozols-zemkopibas-ministrijas-skaidrojums)
Description of the situation
In this regard, following a request from the Forest Certification Council of Latvia, I will comment on the current situation. In practice, since 2017, FSC and SBP certified companies (https://sbp-cert.org/accreditations-and-certifications/certificate-holders/; www.info.fsc.org) acquiring FSC Controlled or SBP certified wood have been required to assess whether a specific forest compartment corresponds to a specially protected habitat of EU or local importance, regardless of the felling permit issued by the State Forest Service (VMD). These requirements must be observed in accordance with the FSC Centralised National Risk Assessment (Document | Forest Stewardship Council (fsc.org)) and the SBP Regional Risk Assessment: https://sbp-cert.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/SBP-endorsed-Regional-Risk-Assessment-for-Latvia.pdf
It should be noted that the risk regarding habitat protection is defined for private and municipality-owned forests that are not FSC or PEFC certified.
To meet the aforementioned requirements, up until the beginning of this year, practice generally involved using the information available at www.latbio.lv regarding potential habitat distribution areas, which required every “red” compartment mentioned in the system to be inspected in the field to assess whether the area met the habitat characteristics. In the field, a modified questionnaire created by the World Wide Fund for Nature was usually applied: https://wwflv.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/biologiski_augstvertigas_mezaudzes.pdf
This surveying of compartments created a high administrative burden for certificate holders and was often deemed ineffective in ensuring the protection of a specific compartment. It was also known that compartments were often assessed with a lower high-value rating than was actually the case. This is evidenced by the summaries of audit reports provided by certification bodies (https://sbp-cert.org/accreditations-and-certifications/certificate-holders/; www.info.fsc.org).
Cause
I would like to emphasise that the reason we are currently talking about the OZOLS database is the changes to the definition of high-value forests and certification standards, not the OZOLS database or the Nature Census project (https://www.skaitamdabu.gov.lv/public/lat/par_dabas_skaitisanu/) as such. Moreover, the requirement has existed since 2017. One might think that Latvia is in a more disadvantageous position compared to its neighbours, but that would not be true, as high risks regarding habitats and their protection are also defined in all our closest neighbouring countries: Lithuania, Estonia and Finland.
Consequences
With the implementation of the Nature Census project, the OZOLS database now contains information on potential and actual areas that meet habitat criteria. Although there are valid discussions within the industry about whether all EU and local importance habitats must be protected regardless of their quality, within the framework of the FSC Controlled Wood Chain of Custody and SBP certification, they are not subject to harvesting even if they have a low-quality rating. Therefore, if there is a desire to change the order of things, it is the definition of high-value forests and risk assessments, or the existing regulatory environment in the country, that must be changed, not the OZOLS system!
Given the fact that quality control of all data available in OZOLS has not yet been performed, it would also be logical that the information provided in OZOLS could be challenged, but this should be done by certified habitat experts when preparing a new assessment. In practice, there have been cases where a habitat expert identifies a separate habitat area within a compartment, thus allowing forestry in the remaining part of the compartment.
The information available in the OZOLS database is currently considered the most effective way to identify habitats in the private forest sector. This can be justified by the fact that it is also currently effectively the only publicly available database that shows both the territories protected under certification, the territories protected under legislation, and the boundaries of specific compartments as such. In 2017, when starting the certification of private companies according to the requirements of the new risk assessment, situations often occurred where processing companies did not have access to information about the actual compartment boundaries, but only about cadastral boundaries. Since habitat features are assigned within a compartment, not a cadastre, this was the first hurdle to effective risk mitigation that industry companies had to overcome.
Further actions
It would be important to ensure that the OZOLS database is regularly updated in the future; otherwise, it will lose its relevance and suitability for risk mitigation within a few years. A similar situation is observed in Estonia, where, in addition to state-maintained systems, non-governmental organisations have created additional layers for forest surveys because the latest habitat mapping data is from the early 2000s.
Since the presence of a habitat is not an obstacle to the issuance of a felling permit, but there are more than 300 certified companies in Latvia and effectively all timber acquired in the private sector is subjected to the aforementioned risk assessments, it would be welcomed if the felling permit issued by the VMD included a note that an EU or local importance habitat has been identified in that specific cadastre; such a practice is implemented in our Northern neighbour.