On 31 January, the Latvian State Forest Research Institute "Silava" hosted an introductory event on forest management in Latvia entitled "Forest, Climate, People". Forest industry professionals, understanding that the recent so-called "letter from the intelligentsia", signed by various representatives of the creative professions, was drafted without a particularly good grasp of the work of forest owners, forest managers, and forest scientists, invited the signatories to participate. We did not count precisely, nor did we force anyone to sign up, but the most visible representative of the signatories who took part in the discussion was playwright Lelde Stumbre, who, while asking questions, expressed confusion and a lack of knowledge about various matters that are absolutely self-evident to foresters. The playwright was more interested in why there has been a discussion about forestry for 30 years (or slightly less) at all, with an emphasis on logging, or in her words, tree felling.

The meeting was opened with a short address by Minister of Agriculture Kaspars Gerhards, who emphasised the need to explain things and talk to those who have little connection to forests. He gave the floor to the director of "Silava", Jurģis Jansons. In a fairly broad and informatively dense narrative, J. Jansons provided an insight into the development and trends of forest science in Latvia over the years, noting that this is a "slightly tired viewpoint", as it has been told to many different audiences and to many people. Regarding the indirect but frequently discussed question of whether forest scientists are taking a stand against biologists, J. Jansons invited the audience to speak with his "Silava" colleagues, academician Tālis Gaitnieks and one of the heads of the forest monitoring group, Andis Adamovičs. A short summary of the presentation: if there are calls in society to move closer to the Nordic countries, Latvia must choose Sweden or Finland, not North Korea!

Lelde Stumbre's question, acting as a statement, smoothly introduced the next part of the conversation regarding logging. Mrs Stumbre had heard in unspecified discussions that wood obtained from logging sites goes straight abroad, where it is processed into various products, for example "wooden boxes", and sold back to Latvia with added value... The Chairman of the Board of A/S "Latvijas finieris", Uldis Biķis, tried to dispel these unfounded concerns in his speech by talking about the processing industry, its traditions, and exports. His summary: if someone does not understand the work of the industry, industry people must explain and explain again. Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Board of the Latvian Forest Owners' and Managers' Confederation, Māris Liopa, concluded by addressing Lelde Stumbre as a representative of the creative intelligentsia, expressing bewilderment as to why the signatories of the letter, who are after all intelligent, educated people, had not bothered to find out what the true situation in Latvian forests is before signing and distributing the letter to the public – none of the forest owner or forest scientist representatives were approached, and our industry professionals had not received any questions either. Representatives of the intelligentsia have apparently trusted uncritically the true compilers of the letter, who are representatives of the so-called "aggressive green policy". The meeting proved that the forest industry must continue to dedicate very serious work to educating the public as a whole. So far, this has been done far too little! Recently, there has been very organised, tendentious, and at times even hostile rhetoric directed against those people who, by working in the forest industry, increase the well-being of society as a whole. Our industry and its people deserve respect and gratitude for their excellent work for the benefit of Latvia!