zemeunvalsts.lv note: activists of every stripe, environmental campaigners included, are attacking Estonia's foresters, apparently failing to see that the state must continually increase spending on strengthening both external and internal security.

The Environment Agency, which operates under the auspices of Estonia's Ministry of Climate, has published a chart showing that logging has been excessive for more than a decade already, the newspaper “Postimees” reports, noting that the wood processing industry and the public have thus long been misled by claims that logging is slower than the regrowth of the forests.

Over ten years, more forest has been felled in Estonia than managed to grow in 12 years. The Environment Agency has only now revealed this situation, radically revising the contrary figures it had previously provided.

Rauls Rozenvalds, a researcher in sustainable forestry at the University of Tartu and a doctor of forest management, told the newspaper that the Environment Agency's reputation as an institution is high and that on the whole it provides reliable data on its area of responsibility, but that the information on the figures describing forestry has changed sharply on several occasions and that “the data have long been illogical”, even though the agency's data underpin decisions about the sector.

“Postimees” suggests that some of Estonia's timber industry figures and most of the public lived under the illusion that forest resources are inexhaustible, and moreover that some senior officials at the Ministry of Climate have manipulated the numbers, claimed that felling volumes could be increased further and criticised those who warned about excessive logging.

The ministry receives its forest data from the Environment Agency. Only very recently, in the draft law on a climate-resilient economy, the Ministry of Climate stated that “the domestic forest and wood industry sector is guaranteed a stable supply of raw materials”. That can be ensured if the forest grows by more than is felled.

On this indicator the ministry stated: “Based on the Environment Agency's forecasts, which were made on the basis of the existing data, an average felling volume of almost 9.9-10.2 million cubic metres a year meets the conditions set out”. In June, however, the Environment Agency published data according to which the net increment of managed forests is only 8.1 million cubic metres a year.

Climate Minister Joko Alendere and Deputy Chancellor Kristi Klāsa expressed bafflement at the problem in early August. The minister said she had not received the latest data on the net increment of the forests, while the deputy chancellor said that around ten million cubic metres a year is the estimated felling volume needed to meet the climate targets.

Madiss Raudsārs, a leading specialist at the Environment Agency, revealed how a figure considerably larger than the net increment of commercial forests found its way into the draft law. From what he said it follows that the ministry has played a trick: first the draft law contains a reassuring sentence, as though less forest were being felled than is growing and the timber industry were receiving wood at a steady rate. Then comes a figure that does not match the promises, and there is no statement of how long the felling volume could be held “steadily” at ten million cubic metres. Nor is it stated that this much can be felled only with the support of the “forest inheritance”, when that inheritance will run out, and when a painful drop will come and a balance be reached at a volume less than half the current felling volume.

The minister now insists that “the felling volume must be reduced. We are working to bring the average felling volume to 10 million cubic metres a year”.