In the film “Vella kalpi”, there is an episode where the night watchman declares the midnight hour, adding that everything is calm in the city. It seems that everything is also calm and in order in the Latvian state – we are wealthy, we have paid off our debts, heating and food issues have been resolved, electricity will be sufficient for the next 5-8 years, and all problems and worries have evaporated. Everything in the country is just fine!

It is not for nothing that on Tuesday, 17 May, the meeting of the Subcommittee on Environment and Climate of the Saeima's Economic, Agricultural, Environmental and Regional Policy Committee will address the issue of a logging cessation period during the bird nesting season. This initiative was created back in the days when people did not know what C19 was, made masks for balls, and watched films about war, often involuntarily.

If one considers the situation seriously, at a time when in many parts of the European Union there is uncertainty about the slow but approaching winter, when such uncertainty also prevails in Latvia, when farmers have problems due to the nearby hostilities, when the State Employment Agency reports mass layoffs (1)... (the list could be continued)...

In short – at a time when Latvia acutely needs people, local resources, and their use for our own needs, the desire to continue blindly and idiotically clinging to the urge to finish off the national economy should be considered treason. As is known, other countries, responding to the situation with currently available resources, have reviewed requirements and restrictions (2, 3), primarily thinking about their country's inhabitants. I wonder if anyone will be satisfied with the explanation that we will all be cold in winter, but we will not be able to go into the forest for firewood or chip bushes for heating because a few active fellow citizens want it that way.

It looks like the inertia of the public administration and its friendly non-governmental organisations cannot be moved even by a virus and a war. The steamroller continues to operate. It must be stopped!

The film mentioned at the beginning of the introduction also had another saying: “A traitor's name has a bad reputation!”

A large part of society is forced to support the hobby of a few individuals!

(...) ...those who believe that forest work should be terminated during a specific period should reckon with the fact that they would have to feed and employ those workers who have chosen professions in the forestry sector. In early tending felling, a ban on thinning during the nesting period already exists; this is nothing new. Taking into account nature conservation positions regarding clear-cutting from the last 15-20 years, a certain number of growing trees are left in the felling areas, trees with cavities, trees with nests, grouped under the name – retained biological trees; consequently, birds also nest in them. In the ornithologists' irresistible desire to impose restrictions, one can see yet another attempt, while appeasing some and frightening others, to continue finishing off Latvia's national economy and the country's economic independence.

Restricting, banning, limiting, slowing down...

The Latvian Ornithological Society (LOB) estimates that more than 50 thousand bird nests are destroyed each year due to logging (4). The disturbance caused by logging during the nesting season also threatens those birds whose nests are not physically destroyed. For example, the black stork and the white-tailed eagle. While collecting signatures, ornithologists called for a general break in logging and young forest tending from 1 April to 30 June, incorporating this requirement into the Nature Conservation Regulations for forest management.

“These are tens of thousands of nests that perish; this is a threat to specially protected species – under the current procedure, and it shows that the existing restrictions are far from sufficient. In Latvia, forests are managed primarily in the name of economic interests, and it is not customary in the forestry sector to consider other interests – whether it be nature conservation or recreation. Although at the same time it should be noted that there are both forest owners and forestry sector employees who also support setting a cessation period. The main resistance comes from the, so to speak, lobbyists of the forestry sector (...)” says Viesturs Ķerus, Chairman of the Board of the LOB.

In the view of the Ornithological Society, current regulations are ineffective because they ban logging during the bird nesting period only in part of the Latvian territory, for example, in municipal forests and on the seashore. V. Ķerus points out that the LOB approached the government with a similar appeal several years ago; a working group was created in the Ministry of Agriculture (ZM), but no result was achieved.

The Head of the Forest Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Arvīds Ozols, calls the initiative for introducing a logging cessation period unfounded (5), because such requirements are already in the regulations – seasonal bans, micro-reserve regulations, etc.

“The system can always be improved, but not with flat bans. We are moving towards a specific and targeted regulatory system to ensure the maximum nature conservation effect and at the same time not to introduce unjustified restrictions on economic activity, (..)” points out A. Ozols.

The Chairman of the Board of the Latvian Forest Owners' Association, Arnis Muižnieks, believes that there are already many mandatory requirements for forest management in normative acts compared to other European countries.

“We do not have rich oil, gas, or iron ore resources; our main resource is land, which we need and can use productively for the production of agricultural and forestry products. But even now, if we look – it is not as if spring is the most intensive period, because there is road thawing, the sap-flow time for deciduous trees, and a price drop; even now, trees are not being cut the most. I think that by teaching people and allowing them to decide for themselves (..),– in that way we can move forward, but to set another ban – we will definitely object to that,” says A. Muižnieks (5).

To reduce the “anthropogenic load on birds”, ornithologists could set an example and not crawl out of Riga in the spring (in some protected places the number of visitors would decrease by 100%). Does the black stork like being put in a bag to be weighed? Do small birds like being caught in traps in Pape? Are the cameras at the nests not to blame for the poor nesting success? Are “friends of nature” not the biggest disturbers of capercaillies during the lekking period?

The ancient Latvians knew how to say: do not poke your nose into someone else's yard.

Activists are trying to shoot a sparrow with a cannon – logging does not take place in the entire territory of Latvia every year, but the collectors of signatures for the ban want to introduce it across the whole country. This is not proportional.

One might think that nasty forest managers or farmers, landowners, only think about how to eradicate everything around them. There is a fervent call to forbid a farmer from cutting a tree in his own forest in summer. It can be seen that the activists live in Riga and the countryside is a place for them to go and relax. People still live in the countryside. Not only do they live there, but they also work hard to earn a living and feed the city dwellers. If land is private property, it is completely unacceptable for someone from the outside to dictate what we are allowed and not allowed to do with our private property. If someone, for example the state, wants to do so, adequate compensation must be paid for the losses caused by the bans and restrictions. That is what must be fought for first! It is not nature conservation that these activists' efforts are aimed at! They are aimed at the destruction of the national economy!
I do not know why nature conservation, as it is implemented here, is like a caricature that brings benefits to administrators and fund-takers, not to nature and other people. In Latvia, it has begun to take on distinctly deformed, human-hostile proportions.
1. https://zinas.tv3.lv/ekonomika/nva-sogad-par-planoto-kolektivo-atlaisanu-pazinojusi-11-uznemumi/
2. https://yle.fi/news/3-12409412
3. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exclusive-germany-prepares-crisis-plan-abrupt-end-russian-gas-sources-2022-05-09/
4. https://www.lob.lv/2020/06/iniciativa-par-mezizstrades-miera-periodu-putnu-ligzdosanas-laika-tuvojas-iesniegsanai-saeima/
5. https://www.lsm.lv/raksts/dzive--stils/vide-un-dzivnieki/ornitologi-grib-panakt-miera-noteiksanas-periodu-mezos-putnu-ligzdosanas-laika.a177349/
Photographs by Miķelis Taukačs used