Over the past few decades, the debate about the role of forests in climate regulation, CO₂ sequestration and logging has turned into one of the hottest flashpoints of political, scientific and economic conflict, both in the European Union and here at home – in Latvia.
How did the problem arise? Historical context
We can regard the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 as the starting point for this story. For the first time it was recognised, in international law, that forests can act as "carbon sinks". Countries were allowed to count forest sequestration towards the overall reduction of their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Naturally, a rather pleasant illusion took hold at first, since policymakers thought forests were a "free instrument" – simply plant trees, or leave them standing, and industrial and transport emissions would be offset.
The tightening of European regulation
In 2018 the European Union introduced strict Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) regulation. An "accounting reference level" was set; countries could no longer simply take credit for having forests, but had to prove that carbon sequestration in their forests was increasing relative to a historical reference point.
Next came the "heavy artillery", so to speak – the European Green Deal in 2019, and "Fit for 55" in 2021, that is, Europe set itself the target of achieving climate neutrality by 2050. The demands placed on forests grew sharply – they had to become the main instrument for neutralising the remaining emissions that cannot be eliminated entirely, for example in agriculture.
Latvia's specific history, and the turning point
In Latvia the historical background was closely tied to the country's period of occupation. After the collapse of the USSR, large areas of agricultural land in Latvia became overgrown and logging decreased. That is why, in the 1990-2010 period, Latvia's forests absorbed a huge amount of CO₂. Latvia positioned itself internationally as a very "green country", whose forests easily offset other emissions. Our country is undoubtedly a "green country", but... in the context of European Union policy we reached a turning point, and a situation arose that could be called a crisis on this issue. This happened around 2020, when, owing to the age structure of Latvia's forest stands and increased logging, Latvia's forests, under the approach of the EU's new environmental policy, officially flipped from being a CO₂ sink to being a source of emissions. Old forests planted in the post-war years reached natural maturity and began to die off, releasing CO₂, or were felled. Young stands were not yet able to compensate for that volume.
Forests cover more than half of Latvia's territory, but despite that we have ended up in an absurd situation. To put it plainly, Latvia faces a real risk of having to pay fines running into millions of euros, or buy CO₂ allowances from other countries, because, according to the criteria, we are unable to meet the national targets set by the European Union for the LULUCF sector. This has created huge tension between the forest sector and so-called environmentalists.
"Cut and replace" versus "Don't cut, and accumulate"
In science and in politics there are currently two starkly opposed camps, each with its own arguments and its own critics.
The forest sector's argument is active management. A young, fast-growing forest sequesters CO₂ far more intensively than an old one. That is why old trees should be felled, and the timber used in long-lived products, in construction, furniture and elsewhere, where carbon stays "locked in" for decades, while a new, productive stand should be planted in place of the felled forest.
The argument of environmental activists and various opponents of the forest sector is "nature conservation". They believe that when a forest is felled, a large share of the carbon that had been stored in the trees and the forest soil is released into the atmosphere immediately – especially if the wood is turned into pellets or cut into pulpwood. A young stand needs at least 15-20 years just to reach a positive balance and start offsetting the losses caused by the logging.
Biomass and energy – "green lies"?
For years the European Union and Latvia regarded wood chips and pellets as a "renewable energy source" with zero emissions, on the grounds that the tree had already sequestered the CO₂ while growing. Critics, however, are pointing out ever more loudly that burning wood produces more CO₂ per unit of energy than coal. The carbon in wood smoke enters the atmosphere immediately, while sequestering it again in a new tree will take, say, 80 years... Critics have called this time lag a "carbon debt", and stress that, in a climate crisis, we do not have that kind of time to spare.
Accounting versus physical reality
Calculations of CO₂ sequestration in forests are, to a large extent, mathematical modelling. Critics point out that these models often fail to account with sufficient accuracy for soil emissions. Many forests in Latvia are drained. When peat soil dries out and becomes exposed to oxygen, the soil begins to mineralise rapidly and release huge amounts of CO₂, which often completely cancels out what the trees have sequestered above ground.
The grounds for criticising the system
Focusing solely on tonnes of CO₂ has created an incentive to establish "monoculture plantations", such as pure spruce stands, which grow quickly but are, as critics see it, ecologically lifeless, unstable, and vulnerable to bark beetle infestations.
Calculation methodologies assume that a forest will grow steadily. In reality, droughts, storms and pests, which are intensifying because of climate change, cause forests to die off faster, turning them into CO₂ "producers", as has already happened in Germany and Canada.
Economic pressure on Latvia
Our forest sector accounts for a significant share of Latvia's exports and employs thousands of people in the regions. Attempts to artificially slow down logging in order to "improve the accounting figures in Brussels" strike a direct blow to Latvia's economy, yet continuing to log at current volumes means risking enormous fines for missing climate targets. Right now, in 2026, it is clear that forests cannot be the sole, universal "saviour" in a climate crisis. The core structural problem is that society is trying to use a natural ecosystem – the forest – as an industrial filter, while ignoring its biological limits.
Manipulation, tricks and political targets
Criticism and scepticism towards CO₂ calculations in the forestry sector in Europe have reached a peak. Independent scientists, environmental activist organisations such as Fern and Carbon Market Watch, and even official state institutions, are speaking ever more loudly about systemic manipulation, loopholes in the methodology, and data being "massaged" to fit political targets. The main arguments of the sceptics and critics, along with the suspicions of manipulation, can be grouped into several structural strands.
There are both various "accounting tricks" and political manipulation of baseline levels. The greatest suspicion of manipulation attaches to the Forest Reference Levels (FRL) self-determined by EU member states, whereby countries could historically choose specific years, for example a period when logging was low or forests were growing fastest, in order to create a reference point favourable to themselves. If the real situation in the forest deteriorates, the country changes its mathematical models or introduces "technical corrections" so that, on paper, it looks as though the target has been met. Critics regard this as "climate accounting" that has nothing to do with the physical reality in the atmosphere. Some scientists point out that carbon sequestration is calculated in virtual computer models rather than measured in nature, which allows officials to "play around with the variables".
The European Commission's 2026 "Deep Clean"
The European Commission's recent plan to merge the land and forest sector with the ESR – the regulation covering the remaining national targets – into a single climate target instrument has triggered a sharp and divisive reaction.
Many eco-activists and the most passionate "climate-front fighters" always suspect so-called greenwashing. Environmental activist organisations, such as Fern, openly describe it as an attempt to let the giants of industrial logging off the hook. By merging the sectors, countries would supposedly be able to hide the fact that sequestration in their forests is collapsing because of intensive logging, using the excuse that "climate change, drought and bark beetles have destroyed the forests, so there is nothing we can do". Eco-activists stress that it is precisely commercial logging, not natural disasters or insect infestations, that is causing the loss of tree cover in Europe. It is worth pointing out here, however, that in Europe forest growth exceeds losses. That, of course, is something these eco-activists almost always "forget"…
The "biomass paradox"
Under European Union rules, burning wood for energy – chips, pellets – counts as "renewable energy" with a zero emissions factor at the point of consumption. These emissions have to be accounted for in the country where the forest was harvested, not where the chips or pellets are actually burned. Where does the manipulation lie? This approach creates a huge hole in global accounting. If Latvia exports pellets to the United Kingdom or Germany, those countries proudly report "0 emissions" from replacing coal in their own reports, while Latvia's forest balance falls. Sceptics point out that this system incentivises logging for "burning" purposes in the consuming countries, causing an immediate rise in atmospheric CO₂ that is referred to as a "carbon debt", one that is not adequately reflected in short-term climate balances.
Deliberate disregard of soil and deadwood data?
Critics stress that national reports focus only on what happens "above ground", meaning the growth of tree trunks, because that is easy to calculate and to use in economic arguments. Critics point out that forest soil and micro-organisms are being ignored. When a forest is felled with heavy machinery in a clear-cut, or regeneration felling, the soil is disturbed and exposed to the sun. Carbon that has accumulated there for hundreds of years starts to oxidise rapidly and escape into the atmosphere. Environmental activists point out that these "underground emissions" are often artificially understated in national data, or modelled with a very high degree of uncertainty.
Is there an alternative solution?
In order to address the alleged crisis of data unreliability and forest degradation, green organisations and various eco-activists in Europe and Latvia are increasingly trying to promote Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF), i.e. forest management without clear-cutting. They believe that, by excluding clear-cuts (regeneration fellings), the dramatic swings in the carbon balance would disappear – from a huge sink to a sudden source of emissions. In this way, they claim, the forest would maintain a stable, physically measurable carbon base in both soil and biomass, and would deny officials and industry lobbies the opportunity to manipulate mathematical models of young stands and clear-cut areas.
An expensive "niche method", not a meaningful solution
Theoretical models of Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF) management are often devised in isolation from Latvia's real socio-economic situation, and forcing its general, compulsory introduction across commercial forests would strike a severe blow to the country's prosperity. Experts, economists and scientists in Latvia's forest sector point to a series of fundamental economic and technical problems that show CCF management is not a universal miracle cure, but rather an expensive and specific niche method.
A catastrophic loss of productivity and efficiency
Logging efficiency is directly tied to labour productivity and machinery costs. In a clear-cut, a modern harvester and forwarder work in a concentrated, fast and maximally efficient way, whereas in a CCF system the operator has to "manoeuvre" between the remaining trees, selecting individual trunks. This can cut the pace of work by as much as 50%, while sharply increasing fuel consumption and machine wear per cubic metre of timber extracted. A further problem is the lower quality of the timber obtained. Repeatedly harvesting and removing individual trees inevitably damages the roots and trunks of the remaining trees. Fungal spores, such as root rot, enter the trees through these wounds, causing the stand to deteriorate rapidly. Instead of obtaining valuable sawlogs years later, the owner or manager ends up, at best, with firewood-grade timber.
A blow to Latvia's exports and employment
The forest sector is the backbone of Latvia's economy, providing more than 20% of the country's total goods exports and employing at least 50,000 people – mainly in rural regions. The "CCF management" advocated by environmental organisations can in no way provide a stable, predictable and sufficiently large supply of timber for Latvia's modern sawmills and panel producers, including plywood production, for instance. If the volume of raw material falls, factories are forced to operate under capacity, or even close. Bankruptcies among logging and wood-processing companies, or a contraction in production, would hit Latvia's regions hardest – Kurzeme, Vidzeme and Latgale – where the forest sector is often the only stable employer and taxpayer, both for local municipalities and for the state as a whole.
Biological incompatibility with Latvia's main tree species
Eco-activists often keep quiet about the fact that the CCF model is borrowed from Central Europe – Germany, Switzerland, and also Slovenia – where beech and silver fir dominate, species that grow excellently in shady conditions. Latvia's natural growing conditions and main tree species are different. Pine and birch will not survive in shade. Both pine and birch are markedly light-demanding species, unable to establish and survive in the shade of an old forest. If clear-cutting were banned in Latvia, pine and birch stands would gradually disappear, and in their place less valuable, more shade-tolerant species would naturally take over, such as grey alder or dense, low-quality spruce stands.
It would also create a bark beetle paradise in Latvia's forests. Leaving partially harvested, thinned spruce stands in the forest makes them unstable against wind and sun exposure. Trees weakened in this way are an ideal target for bark beetles. As a result, in trying to "preserve" the forest through CCF management, pests would simply wipe out the entire stand on a mass scale.
Artificially created "green myths" and outright public disinformation
The forest sector, as well as the more level-headed part of Latvian society, is opposed to the activities of radical environmental organisations, which often manipulate public emotion in a biased way, grounded in neither science nor fact.
Eco-activists aggressively use methods of emotional pressure. A clear-cut looks visually unappealing, which is very easy to exploit in social media campaigns to create the impression that "Latvia's forests are being destroyed" and "everything is being cut down". What goes unmentioned is that forest in Latvia is regenerated under strict laws, and that the country's forest area has doubled over the last 100 years.
We can observe what is known as the carbon sequestration paradox. As already noted, an old, untouched forest sequesters very little CO₂. Only intensive forestry, in which a tree is felled at maturity, a selectively bred, fast-growing seedling is planted in its place, and the wood is incorporated into long-lived products, can genuinely help the global CO₂ balance. Under CCF management, the pace of carbon sequestration becomes much slower, or does not happen at all.
Restricting private property rights and the ruin of rural regions
Latvia has more than 100,000 private forest owners. For many rural residents, their forest is their only capital for old age, for educating their children, or for modernising their farm. By imposing on them the complicated, expensive and inefficient CCF management method, the state would in effect strip owners of the ability to manage their own property and earn a fair income from it. The result is that local enterprise is held back and rural depopulation is encouraged. As far as forest owners are concerned, Latvia still has an unfair compensation system for nature-protection restrictions. Compensation payments are pitifully small and do not cover the losses incurred; in effect, the forest owner is forced to give up managing their own property "for the good of society", receiving mere pennies in return. All of this looks rather like a "very communist approach"...
What are the real cost differences between the felling methods under Latvian conditions?
Imposing the CCF method as a universal model for commercial forests is an economically unfounded theory that ignores market logic and the physical costs of logging. This view is confirmed not only by Latvian forest managers, but also by forest-industry companies in Finland and Sweden, which have been Europe's forestry leaders for decades and are currently fighting hardest in Brussels against bans on clear-cutting, or regeneration felling.
The cost factor
Forest-sector data on operating costs per cubic metre of timber extracted, under Latvian and Baltic regional conditions, clearly show the economic disadvantage of CCF management. In a clear-cut, machinery works at full capacity, since there is no need to manoeuvre between remaining trees. In a CCF system, or selective felling, the pace of machine work falls by 30-50%. That means a harvester fells half as much timber per hour, while the costs of machine depreciation and the operator's wages remain unchanged. Fuel consumption is also a problem. To select and carefully extract individual tree trunks, a forwarder has to travel much greater distances through the forest, damaging the soil and consuming 20-40% more diesel per cubic metre.
Additional logistics and planning also have to be organised. Before a selective felling, every tree to be cut has to be physically marked and recorded, which requires the working time of highly paid forestry specialists. In a clear-cut, such costs per cubic metre are minimal. This whole cost difference is a direct loss, both for the forest owner and for the state budget in tax revenue.
The situation and views in the Nordic neighbouring countries
Finland and Sweden are the countries with the largest share of forest in Europe. In both countries, the forest sector is a pillar of national prosperity, which is why the debate over CCF management is extremely sharp there, and the forest sector views the method critically.
The fight against Brussels regulations, and the defence of efficiency
Sweden's forestry model traditionally rests on the so-called "trakthuggning", or clear-cutting, system. The Swedish Forest Industry Federation – Skogsindustrierna – has carried out a series of studies showing that the clear-cutting system produces, on average, 15-20% more timber per hectare than CCF management methods.
On this issue, the Nordic countries organise active political resistance to Brussels. When the European Commission tried to include restrictions on clear-cutting in the EU Forest Strategy, the Swedish government, together with Finland, formed a strong coalition to block these proposals, arguing that Brussels was threatening their national economy and their right to decide on their own resources.
The views of Nordic forest owners are also strong and vocal. Large private forest owners and cooperatives, such as Södra, point out that CCF management is financially disadvantageous for commercial enterprises. The method is only tolerated as a niche tool in specific locations – near towns, for aesthetic reasons, or in mountainous areas, against erosion.
The war of the two camps, and the state forest experiment
In Finland, legislation was liberalised to allow CCF management (jatkuva kasvatus). This created a huge conflict between radical eco-activists and the forest sector. Under political pressure, Finland's state forest manager (Metsähallitus) agreed to set a target – to increase CCF management to 25% of its area, mainly in wetlands and peatlands, where clear-cutting can change groundwater levels.
Scientists at Finland's Natural Resources Institute – Luke – stress that the CCF method is only economically viable if a stand is already historically of mixed age. If an attempt is made to artificially convert the current uniform, productive conifer forest into a CCF forest, the transition period lasts decades and brings enormous financial losses.
Giants of Finland's wood-processing and paper industry, such as UPM and Stora Enso, warn – if 440 000 Finnish private forest owners start switching en masse to CCF management methods, the industry will run short of technological timber, pulpwood and cellulose raw material, which would wreck Finland's export competitiveness, for example against South America, where trees grow on plantations at tremendous speed.
We know how to work our forests correctly
So-called "green disinformation" tries to portray CCF management as an easy, cheap and nature-friendly alternative. In reality, in Latvia, Finland and Sweden alike, the fundamentals of forest economics remain unchanged – without clear-cutting it is not possible to sustain a modern, highly technological and profitable wood-processing industry. Imposing the CCF method on all forests would mean voluntarily giving up national competitiveness and promoting the economic collapse of the regions in favour of unfounded theoretical models.
A clear-cut, which we also call a regeneration felling (the forest is replanted so it can grow back even more productive), is not, in the forest sector, the destruction of a forest, but rather the start of a new, high-value forest life cycle. It provides unique conditions for the practical application of scientific advances – forest selection and genetics – which is technically and biologically impossible to achieve under CCF conditions.
Why is clear-cutting the best, and economically the only effective, instrument?
It is the only way to make use of selectively bred seedlings. Latvia's state forest research institute "Silava" has spent decades selecting the finest trees – pines, spruces, birches – to produce seed with the best genetic code. This achieves 20-30% greater growth, because stands planted with certified container seedlings bred in Latvia grow roughly a quarter faster, form straight, high-quality trunks, and are markedly more resistant to disease. Planting these expensive, high-quality seedlings requires a fully open, prepared area, using strip or mound soil preparation, where the young saplings do not have to compete with the roots of old trees for water and nutrients.
Light deficiency and the death of young trees in selective fellings
Attempts to plant selectively bred seedlings in a CCF – selective felling – forest are often doomed to financial failure for biological reasons. Latvia's main tree species – pine and birch – need maximum sunlight. Seedlings planted in the shade of old trees do not receive enough light for photosynthesis; they become leggy, weak, and simply die within a few years. A high-value, selectively bred seedling, and the planting of it, is an investment. Planting such a seedling in the kind of shade that follows a selective felling means the forest owner is literally burying money in the ground, because the tree will never reach its genetic potential.
What happens at the next felling rounds?
The CCF management model assumes that logging machinery – harvesters and forwarders – returns to a given forest compartment every 10-15 years to fell the next batch of mature trees, which in effect means "trampling" the young new generation of trees. As heavy machinery manoeuvres between the remaining trees to fell and remove the large trunks, it inevitably breaks, tramples and damages the young saplings that have grown up or been planted in the meantime. In a clear-cut, this risk does not exist, because the forest is only planted once the machinery has already left the area.
The impossibility of soil preparation
For a seedling to establish quickly, the mineral soil layer needs to be exposed – by scarification or mounding. This ensures that grasses and herbaceous plants do not choke the seedling's roots. Under the CCF method, in conditions where old tree roots, stumps and standing trees are everywhere, modern soil-preparation machinery simply cannot physically get through and do the job properly. As a result, planting has to be done in unprepared soil, where the establishment rate is very low.
The forest has to be productive!
A clear-cut is like preparing the soil for a new crop in agriculture – nobody sows wheat in a meadow without first mowing the grass. Thanks to the clear-cutting, or regeneration felling, system, Latvia is able to maintain the highest forest productivity in the region, ensuring that each successive generation of trees is stronger, more valuable and more economically profitable than the last. Imposing the CCF method would mean a voluntary return to low-yield, "wild" forestry, which would undermine Latvia's position as a major forestry nation.