On 21 March 2018, the FSC Centralised National Risk Assessment (CNRA) for Latvia came into effect, which determined that there is a high risk among Latvia's private forest managers regarding legal employment, tax payments, occupational safety, as well as the protection of specially protected forests. Although certification is voluntary, in practice (in real life), any private forest owner is directly or indirectly subject to the specific certification scheme.
Three months later (in June), the number of risks identified within the scope of controlled wood for Latvia had halved, yet a bitter taste remains - how is it possible that an EU member state was rated lower than, for example, Belarus. Just as in the European Parliament, state representatives in any specific organisation, union or other institution should defend the interests of their country. However, this does not always happen, including regarding the activities of certain certification representatives in Latvia. It is possible to ensure the representation of certification systems in several ways; for example, in the case of PEFC certification, it is not possible to start forest management certification according to the specific scheme if a local PEFC Council, represented by various interest groups creating the PEFC Forest Management Standard, has not been established. In the case of FSC or SBP certification, only a standard is required to act as a guide for auditing. Representation, while theoretically possible in the form of both a legal and a physical person, is not a prerequisite for commencing certification.
Since 2013, we have lost the highest form of FSC national representation in Latvia – the FSC Office (a legal entity), which was formed by approximately 20 organisations representing the Environmental, Social, and Economic chambers – and within 5 years, we have also lost the lowest form of representation: the National Representative (a physical person) status. We are now under the newly established FSC Baltic Region, headed by the head of the Estonian FSC office, Indrek Talpsepp, while the former Latvian representative I. Krūze has become the FSC Forest Project Coordinator.
A concentration of power in the hands of specific individuals is palpable in FSC processes; this enables decision-making but hinders 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 FSC Forest Management certification history in Latvian forests, the situation is "said to have significantly deteriorated," at least according to publicly available and FSC-approved risk assessments. They state that illegal logging is prevalent in Latvia's private and municipality-managed forests and that high-value forests are being destroyed. Previously, such shortcomings were not identified in Latvia, and they are mainly explained by a deliberate change in the definitions of the standard.
The metastases of these new interpretations emerged back in 2015, when the Latvian Biomass Association (LATBio) allowed the full application of the as-yet unapproved SBP Regional Risk Assessment in Latvia. At that time – at the beginning of 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 a practically indispensable tool for the certification process and compliance assessment. Being aware of the circumstances of what was happening and the expected consequences following the approval of the FSC Controlled Wood standard, other organisations representing the interests of the Latvian forest sector did not raise the alarm among private forest owners, until the European Biomass Association (AEBIOM) used the opportunity during a conference organised by them (European Bioenergy Future 2016) to officially announce the election of the new association president and board. The Chairman of the Board of LATBio was elected as the new AEBIOM president, replacing Gustav Melin (SVEBIO, Sweden), who had led the organisation for the last six years, in this position.
In this situation, the state is crying out for the defence of its interests – an advocate for a unified understanding and transparency that represents the interests of the Republic of Latvia, not those of individual persons or organisations. Certification systems act as a prosecutor, identifying violations in Latvia, but there is no opportunity to defend oneself because there is no representation. Along with the weakening of FSC representation in Latvia, another trend is observable – FSC-certified areas in Latvia are shrinking. This has, of course, been largely influenced by the partial withdrawal of AS "Latvijas valsts meži" from the FSC certification system, but this time, unlike in 2010, it has taken place based on the company's own carefully weighed decision, rather than the results of audits.