An interview with Ilze Ozola, Deputy Chair of the Board of the Lake and Peatland Research Centre
Are there many peculiarities in our nature conservation system?
I have heard it many times: the narrative that we are a green country is just a myth. In terms of the proportion of specially protected areas in Europe, we are the third country from the bottom; they make up 11% of Latvia's territory. It sounds dramatic, yet there is roughly the same amount of such areas in Sweden, France, and even Belgium. Denmark and Great Britain are “lower” than us. Slovenia holds first place.
Take a look! Is what is said about Latvia really just a myth?! We have many “so-called” protected areas. For example, when evaluating peatlands where peat extraction could take place, many areas are mentally “discarded” as unsuitable because they would not receive a positive assessment in the environmental impact assessment process. Half of Latvia’s peatlands are not being used economically, but are also not protected, so they do not appear in the aforementioned statistics. I suspect that there are many such areas in other sectors as well.
Another peculiarity, not just for the Latvian nature conservation sector but for Europe as a whole, is: to object loudly to economic activity without offering alternatives. Another example regarding peatlands. Thanks to the “green movement”, many countries have already included a complete phase-out of peat extraction and the use of peat products in their development strategies (Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany) because it negatively affects biodiversity. It would all be lovely – let’s protect the peatlands, let’s create beautiful statistics until the moment we conclude that we are eating low-quality food. Because... Almost every human-grown plant begins its life in a peat substrate – starting with flowers and vegetables, and ending with trees, which we so actively export to Sweden. Seedlings grown in peat substrates are less prone to illness, and therefore less chemistry needs to be used to combat disease. Seedlings grown in peat mostly end up in rock wool later anyway. Tomatoes bought in supermarkets, both from abroad and from Latvia, are grown in rock wool, not peat. Such an “extra” as growing in peat is something few can afford. In the nutritional pyramid, vegetables and fruit make up the largest part. Where will an increasingly urbanised society get vegetables if the peat industry is “thrown into the bin” as nature destroyers? Europe does not appreciate the importance of peat for human health.
Are we “protecting” nature too much?
It might sound as if I am against nature conservation. That is not so! I have personally created information stands in the Puikule peatland to talk about the plants located there. I often lead tours in peatlands and talk about both nature conservation and the use of resources. When I worked at the Latvian Peat Producers Association, I very often felt an attitude: the producer is the cause of many misfortunes (this was particularly felt at seminars on nature conservation). At first, I felt guilty about something; I know that many people working in the sector have similar experiences. This does not seem fair to me! Neither peat extractors nor greenhouse owners have the time to create flashy brochures and heart-rending films about the importance of their work in our lives. But they should (!!!!), because the other side is doing it, and doing it with money brought into the country by production.
Both producers and the nature conservation sector act for our benefit. One, so that we can satisfy our basic needs, the other, so that we do not remain solely at the level of satisfying basic needs. So that we live in a clean and natural environment and so that we have a place to carry out economic activity in the future as well. It would likely be utopian to imagine that both sides will one day sit at a table in a friendly manner and figure out ways to produce and protect. One must delve into the problems of the “opponent” and search for solutions with a cool head. Without solutions, directives and strategies will never “stick” together. The UN forecasts that the world's population will increase from 7.4 billion currently to 8.5 billion in 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050, which means we will need more food, more peat, larger fields for agriculture, and we will build more, so we will need more raw materials – we will cut trees, dig sand, etc. There will inevitably be more GHG emissions, but at the same time, we must reduce them by 90% by 2050. We want everything to be natural, but “natural” comes from nature; therefore, we must take from nature, and some ecosystem must be altered. That is inevitable!
In Latvia, we encounter a problem found elsewhere in Europe that is not characteristic of us: natural peatlands are a rarity in many places, Germany and the Netherlands have the “loudest voices” in European structures and... have no peatlands. But – these countries have money to devote to nature conservation issues. A strange situation is forming – they themselves (in Germany and the Netherlands) have nothing to protect, yet they come to Latvia and tell us how we should act so as not to end up in the situation they are currently in, having industrially exploited around 90% of their peatlands! It was a different time when they depleted their resources – sustainability was not on the agenda then. In the post-war period, the economy had to be restored by any means necessary, which was also successfully implemented. Now the situation is different, so we should not allow panic campaigns to affect reason. It must be remembered that this is our country, our resources, our nature, and it is also our duty to decide for ourselves what we will do with it all, and not let Europe “nudge us in the ribs with its elbows” during the decision-making process.
People have no certainty whether nature conservation is not being, and will not continue to be, organised at their expense. If something truly valuable is found in my forest, and I cannot touch the forest, there must be compensation so that no one feels threatened! People must be sure that they will lose nothing! Protecting nature on an empty stomach is not easy.
Is everything happening equally real both in nature and on paper?
Looking at the available information, we see that there are no longer so many natural values in protected areas; their condition is deteriorating. On the other hand, other natural values are found where people are active – nature is changeable, it does not know the borders drawn on maps. We see this in peat extraction areas as well. These are not quiet, uninhabited, dead deserts! Birds like it there: there are ducks and black storks, as well as swans and geese – it is an environment where humans are nearby, and the birds do not feel threatened by predators because predators fear humans; they “inspect” peat fields early in the morning or at night. There is a false idea: if a bird or animal has decided to settle near a place where a person is actively working, we must fence off everything around their habitat (burrow, nest) so that the animal feels good! If nothing happens nearby, it won’t be interesting for the animal either! I know the counter-argument: “They are displaced and have nowhere to stay!” That is also not true; we see that there are plenty of places to choose from. I would say: “By overprotecting, natural selection and the struggle for survival are lost; there starts to be a shortage of the strongest individuals”. By exhausting a peatland, the birds living there move to a neighbouring peatland. In Latvia, peatlands are in almost every district; there is no need to look for a new place to settle far away in Lithuania, Estonia, or Belarus. In the new place of residence, it might be necessary to fight for living space. The strongest will survive!
Swans often stay next to peat extraction fields; a tractor is working nearby, and the swan does not feel disturbed. I do not know if it is possible to generally and simply characterise birds or animals as quiet-loving…
Is there any idea how lakes in Latvia are becoming peatlands?
I doubt people would remember that in place of this or that peatland, there had been a lake years ago. Memory is short. Another thing – people do not distinguish between low-lying fens and wet meadows.
It would rather be possible to ask it differently – hasn’t a place where everything resembles a meadow once been a lake? As the climate became warmer, nutrients began to accumulate in our lakes, and they started to become overgrown. This is a normal, natural process. If we discharge dirty wastewater into rivers and lakes, this overgrowth happens faster, and new peatlands form. We have a climate suitable for that. Evaporation for us happens slower than we receive precipitation. Our rivers are slow; lake outlets are unable to transport nutrients away quickly enough. Rather, in Latvia, one should think about whether we will have enough lakes in the far future, than about whether we have enough peatlands!
Are lakes and rivers in Latvia cleaned (beds deepened, silt dredged, dredged)?
One thing that can be done, lakes can be cleaned – just like the seashore. Lakes can be cleaned of silt – if we know about sapropel extraction and know where to use sapropel, there is no clear use for lake silt! It is excellent fertiliser! Silt, just like ash, is a known but underused material for fertilisation.
I am currently involved in writing a LIFE project application (I hope it will be supported) regarding the use of lake silt in exhausted peatlands for biomass production. In exhausted peatlands, a thin layer of peat remains, but it is “not interesting” for industrial extractors; therefore, as a result of the project implementation, we would have three benefits – a clean lake, nutrients (fertiliser) in the form of silt would help biomass grow, and a recultivated peatland.
How does the silt extraction and lake cleaning process proceed technically?
We have attracted people (professionals) who perform cleaning work in the sea (Baltic Sea Geology Centre). The equipment is “serious”; it is not cheap… The venture is expensive because we do not have much experience, but the benefits could be excellent. If there is no experience, practical knowledge, the beginning is always more expensive. We calculate costs per cubic metre of silt extracted. So we are talking about Lake Alūksne and the cleaning of a small part of it. The volumes of sediment to be pumped are quite large, several metres in depth; the silt can be used in landscaping or as fertiliser. I am glad that the Alūksne City Council is acting actively to preserve the purity of the lake because it is one of the cleanest in Latvia. But a relatively small part of the lake is significantly overgrown; the silt is already reaching the water's surface, which indicates to me that perhaps after just 50 years, doing nothing, a low-lying fen could form there. Similarly – with an eye to the future – one should look at lakes that are in the centres of populated areas – there are many of them. One should start with them! Ķīšezers, Juglas ezers, Liepājas ezers, Babītes ezers, Stropu ezers…
By dredging silt, the overgrowth of the lake is slowed down; if silt is close to the water surface, the accumulation of dead plants happens ever more actively and overgrowth occurs more rapidly.
How else to reduce pollution or the accumulation of nutrients in small lakes? The solution is paldicultures – they are nothing new! A “good purifier” that excellently uses (“removes”) phosphorus and nitrogen from the soil (rids sediments of them) – is the reedmace. Reeds also do good work, only they need to be mowed. Without investing much and without pumping, these plants can also improve the condition of the lake.
State of the rivers. Rivers are overgrowing, becoming shallower, dredging is not happening…
In rivers, the technologies will be different. As I see from information in the media, good work is the cleaning of rivers in various volunteer clean-up events – by clearing fallen trees, not allowing beavers to take over the river, restoring its natural flow. When restoring peatlands, beavers are the biggest helpers, but in rivers, their activity is not always desirable. Our geographical location is quite stimulating for certain processes – the flat relief without high mountains, the rivers – relatively slow, it is inevitable – lakes and rivers overgrow and the Baltic Sea also suffers from this. Here I want to use one of the pre-election campaign slogans – one must start with oneself – one must think about what household chemicals we release into the sewage, one must follow what substances are used in agriculture, because all that, unfortunately, does not disappear anywhere.
* The second photo, taken by Māris Liopa, shows the peat bas-relief “Physiognomy - another dimension” by peat artist Edgars Ameriks. Zemeunvalsts.lv thanks both authors for the contribution!