This year's Forestry Conference will focus on several important issues affecting both the day-to-day management of forests and the reduction of the administrative burden on forest owners, as well as an assessment of the current state of forest health and the results of innovative research of relevance to forest owners. Topics will include the establishment of protected nature areas and questions of compensation, the spread of the European spruce bark beetle, and changes in legislation and EU support opportunities for forest managers.
The conference can be watched online on 28 November from 10.00 on the website www.laukutikls.lv and as a live broadcast on the LLKC Facebook page.
The event is organised by the Ministry of Agriculture (ZM) in cooperation with the Forest Advisory Service Centre (MKPC) of the Latvian Rural Advisory and Training Centre (LLKC).
We invite forest owners, forest managers, businesses in the sector and everyone working in forestry to register for the conference, and also to submit questions for the conference discussion session HERE.
The Forest Department of the Ministry of Agriculture (ZM) will report on the planned amendments to forest management legislation, including the procedure for receiving EU support in forestry, as well as on progress in drafting the Guidelines for the Development of Forestry and Related Sectors 2025-2032.
The future of forestry cooperation, from sustainable management to added value, will be covered by Andis Malējs, member of the board of the cooperative “Mežsaimnieks”, while trends in standing timber prices and advice on choosing the right season for selling felling sites will be presented by Meža Birža manager Ernests Gabrāns.
The spread of the European spruce bark beetle remains a topical subject, so at the conference Agnis Šmits leading researcher at the Latvian State Forest Research Institute (LVMI) “Silava”, and Jānis Pētersons, head of the Forest and Environmental Protection Division of the State Forest Service, will report on this year's results in controlling the pest, its overall spread, and the conclusions of a study on the impact of the spruce bark beetle on timber resource harvesting and the national economy. Meanwhile Ilze Bargā, researcher and board member at SIA “Baltic Satellite Service”, will introduce the European Space Agency project “Development of a Unified Baltic Earth Observation Data Platform” for the remote identification of spruce bark beetle damage.
Raimonds Bērmanis, director of the LLKC Forest Advisory Service Centre, will present the European Innovation Partnership project “Measures for CO₂ sequestration and the reduction of GHG emissions in forest management, and a system for assessing their impact”.
This year saw widespread objections from forest owners, even in the form of protests, to the planned establishment of new protected areas. At the conference, therefore, Daiga Vilkaste, director of the Nature Protection Department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development (VARAM), will report on the action expected in relation to the establishment of new protected areas, as well as on proposals for improving the compensation system and the measures anticipated in Latvia for implementing the Nature Restoration Regulation.