In relation to the bark beetle, Latvia has been lucky with the weather for the second year in a row. Specifically, this spring was atypically cold with no warm spells, meaning the bark beetles emerged relatively late and reproduced relatively poorly.

"The situation this year is much better than we expected it would be. However, this does not mean that the bark beetle will have disappeared," said Kristaps Klauss, Executive Director of the LKF.

He also mentioned that, on the whole, the industry is accused of painting too bleak a picture, but one only needs to visit the habitat areas of the Gauja National Park, where preventative measures and essential counter-measures against bark beetles were prohibited. "In these territories, which were previously habitats of living spruce trees, there are now swathes of dead spruce," pointed out the LKF Executive Director.