Drawing attention to long-ignored issues affecting Latvian forest owners and everyone working in the forest sector, the forest industry will hold a protest rally at the Cabinet of Ministers on 5 March. The sector is facing unfair treatment both in Latvia and in Europe. One of the most painful issues is compensation for forest owners whose forest land is handed over for nature conservation.
“Forest owners are in favour of a sensible nature conservation policy – it is in our own interest to preserve the share and quality of Latvia's forest territory. However, people all over Latvia have ended up in a disenfranchised position because, while not formally, in essence their land is being nationalised,” explains Arnis Muižnieks, Chairman of the Board of the Forest Owners' Association of Latvia (LMĪB), emphasising that currently, when setting restrictions on the use of forest land, compensation for their owners is blatantly unfair. For one hectare where a forest owner is denied or significantly restricted in their economic activity, 50-190 euros per year are paid, which can be even less than 1% of the real value of the forest. Therefore, the forest industry is demanding immediate action to determine fair compensation that corresponds to the market value of the forest stand.
“The ‘Green Deal’ has truly become a ‘Green Course’, not an agreement, because on a course nobody has to ask anything or agree on anything. Bureaucracy increases with every regulation and directive, while at the same time ‘blood’ timber products from Russia and Belarus continue to flow into the EU. We see that other forest-rich countries fight and prove exceptions for the sake of national interests, but here it seems the national interest has become to adopt everything Brussels wants, and then some,” says Artūrs Bukonts, Executive Director of the Latvian Forest Industry Federation (LKF), quite bluntly. .
The forest industry demands that the government provide for fair compensation and not create new territories with restrictions on economic activity until fair compensation is introduced. There is a demand to develop a concept for introducing a voluntary nature conservation system in Latvia and to address the fact that the forest industry in Latvia is placed in a significantly more disadvantageous position than in other EU member states, while simultaneously reducing bureaucracy that undermines the international competitiveness of the forest sector.
The protest, which has been organised by the LMĪB and the LKF, will be attended by forest owners, as well as employees of forestry and timber processing companies.