Based on outdated and factually incorrect data, a research group working on behalf of the international organization OECD has declared Latvia a country inhospitable for living.

"The state of the natural environment is poor and continues to deteriorate. Only 10% of habitats have a favourable conservation status," says the summary of the Environmental Performance Review report released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (more widely known by its English acronym OECD). However, this is fake news, which was fed to domestic environmental policymakers by radical environmentalists some time ago.

The error regarding data provision was made in 2013, when a report on the conservation status of habitats and species in Latvia was submitted to the European Commission. Most likely, to feed the circle of researchers close to the environmental sector, the study was outsourced. The Nature Conservation Agency's website indicates that data collection was entrusted to the Latvian Fund for Nature - a non-governmental environmental organization, which in turn engaged 28 habitat and species experts. Fanatics of their respective fields. And these public activists then declared that everything is bad with nature in Latvia:

"The most unfavourable situation was found in the forest habitat group, where for absolutely all habitat types it was assessed as the worst possible. In contrast, natural grassland habitats are currently the most rapidly disappearing. The best situation is in the rock outcrop group, which includes limestone and sandstone cliffs and caves."

So, Latvians are apparently only able to take care of rocks. And it is no coincidence that an identical view was expressed by OECD experts in the recently published draft report on Latvia. The full report will only be available in the autumn, but in the currently available review materials, the source and the year 2019 are indicated below a table that exposes the shockingly poor state of Latvia's habitats. However, representatives of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development confirmed to Neatkarīgā that this is actually data from 2013, which the ministry even then assessed as factually incorrect. And it was included in the OECD review simply because there is no newer data - the major nature census project is only halfway through. A new report for the European Commission on the state of habitats is currently being drafted, but the data collected in the OECD review could not yet be used. Consequently, the experts' conclusions were formed based on old data, which was further reinforced by face-to-face meetings with public organizations - without the participation of ministry representatives. It is unofficially known that the ministry does not agree with much of what is written in the report. Not only the conclusions about the state of habitats. However, the official message from Minister Juris Pūce, which was delivered yesterday to the organization's Secretary-General Angel Gurría, is flattering:

"The recommendations included in the OECD Environmental Performance Review are valuable and will be used to improve Latvia's environmental policy, including work on the new National Development Plan and Environmental Policy Guidelines, in order to improve environmental quality and strengthen Latvia's image as a green country. We have done extensive work to ensure compliance with international environmental protection requirements, and it is important to continue what has been started, as well as to make wider use of economic instruments. On the path to green growth, the recommendation for mutual cooperation and coordination between different sectors is essential, by also involving municipalities more. I am pleased that the conclusions of the OECD review conceptually coincide with our vision of development priorities in the environmental field, especially in the area of waste management."

The part about waste is certainly not a lie - the amount of waste per capita continues to grow, and one does not even need to engage in garbology to conclude that the fledgling attempts at waste sorting in Latvia have failed.

The general OECD message to Latvia in both on record and off record meetings, where the level of credibility given to what officials say is higher, generally coincides. Latvia cannot be satisfied with itself if it wishes to achieve the environmental quality of the best member states. The OECD does not compile any rankings among the 36 member states, but one must realize that this is a club of the world's wealthy nations. And its leaders can afford to pay for priorities that, in Latvia's case, are of secondary importance.