A conversation with Jurģis Jansons, Director of the Latvian State Forest Research Institute “Silava”
Over the last six months, when talking about the proportion of Latvia's forest area as a percentage of the total national territory, various figures have been appearing and being cited: 50, 52, 54, even 56. Which one is the most accurate?
My answer may also seem vague, because in forest resource monitoring, information can be collated in various ways. The question is: what areas are we counting and comparing to the total territory of Latvia? The final result for forest cover depends on what we count. For every sample plot visited by monitoring scientists, the land category is primarily determined and assigned a specific code. If a plot falls into an area where trees are growing that can reach a height of at least 5 metres and the number of trees is at least 1,000 per hectare (assuming they potentially form a canopy cover of 20%), the plot is coded as forest. But forests are also diverse. If we have arrived at historical forest land – unambiguous, inventoried forest massifs or clusters, the code is one thing. Such forests in Latvia occupy 3,058 thousand ha or 47.3%. If a forest stand has formed on obvious former agricultural land, we use a different code. Such forests do not have legal forest protection; farmers or city dwellers are free to “convert” them back into arable land or create building plots; these forests in Latvia occupy 175.7 thousand ha or 2.7%. Together, forest stands therefore account for 50% forest cover.
The next land category is a kind of intermediate state – a clear-cut, burnt area, a dead stand, or windthrow where there are no growing trees at the moment of monitoring measurement. If a monitoring specialist arrives at such a sample plot, the land category is coded differently. Such areas in Latvia occupy a total of 51.7 thousand ha and increase forest cover by another 0.8%. In our understanding, it is not a forest, but in the understanding of the legislation – it is! At the same time, a young stand where trees are growing, but which does not meet the legal definition of a regenerated forest or, perhaps, has not yet been inventoried in regeneration checks, is not considered a clear-cut in the national forest monitoring sense, but as forest.
The next land category is peatlands. In forest science, a forest and a peatland are two different ecosystems, which is why a peatland is assigned yet another code. If we also add peatlands to the previously calculated forest cover, it increases by 126.3 thousand ha, reaching 52.8%.
Various forest infrastructure objects on forest land – forest roads, ditches, embankments, ditch tracks – occupy 96.2 thousand ha or 1.5% of Latvia's territory. Finally, in forest lands covering 81.6 thousand ha, there are other interesting areas – floodable clearings (beaver meadows), sandy areas, peculiar heaths, glades, and forest tree seed plantations, occupying 81.6 thousand ha or 1.3% of the territory of Latvia.
So, by adding together the areas described above, we have reached the understanding that forest cover in Latvia over the last five-year period reviewed was 55.6%.
In addition, there are other areas in Latvia where forest trees grow. For example, abandoned agricultural land or meadows where mainly bushes and a few rare small trees grow, which are unlikely to form 20% canopy cover, while the bushes will not exceed 5 m in height. We give such an area a different code, which changes if the number of trees has increased during the next five-year monitoring period and exceeds the aforementioned 1,000 trees per ha. “Hidden” under this code are 144.2 thousand ha of sample plots surveyed in monitoring. We code other areas similarly if trees grow in them – agricultural ditches, railway edges, motorway verges, overgrown quarries, arable land, and grasslands with individual trees, if they “happen” to fall into a sample plot. In some cases, live trees and shrubs have to be measured in a river, lake, or pond. We also measure trees in urban built-up areas, parks, and cemeteries. If we add up all the sample plots and their sectors in which forest trees have been measurable and measured, we get the data: such land occupies 3,799.1 thousand ha or 58.8% of Latvia's territory. Detailed information about each coded category is available on the LVMI “Silava” website, and every user can create their own understanding of Latvia's forest cover, or the land on which forest trees grow.
Some time ago, a “short news item” appeared in the media about the VARAM minister's idea to afforest all empty, unused areas…
I think the minister fully justifies the name of his political force! Up until now, we had received bad news that it was precisely VARAM trying to slow down almost every initiative in the forestry sector aimed at development. In Latvia, land must produce, and every square metre must produce! In my opinion, meaningful and well-founded conservation of natural values is also “production” – in the sense of forest ecosystem services, and such forests must exist! If this story about the minister's initiative is real, let us hope that words will match deeds!
How has 2019been for the “Silava” team?
Today (on the day of the interview) I signed three new employment contracts. I assume that if people come and want to work with us, and we have the opportunity to hire them, the work of “Silava” scientists is necessary in the country and, therefore, the year has been good!
Our basic administrative work involves struggling with various ministry agencies and supervisory offices with which we have to cooperate to attract funding to support the forestry sector with knowledge. This year, the institute had 22 audits, slightly less than last year, when there were 28. So improvements are being felt – we have had more time to think about the forestry sector, science, and its communication with the public.
The main team work at “Silava” takes place in creative groups of scientists. We have about 15 of these, within which human resource and knowledge development takes place. It is important for the public to increasingly understand that forest science is science about the forest and cannot be separated from the relationship between the forest and man, or vice versa. We tell our team this too, because we have graduates from various universities working with us who may have been taught about the forest differently.
The coming (2020) year promises to be…
I must start with this – “Silava” has become the leading organisation (institute) in a European Union study on carbon sequestration and emissions in forests with organic soils. This is both a large additional burden and a huge satisfaction. Until now, we were considered small and insignificant, and both my colleagues and I often displayed the image of a Latvian created by the artist Ilmārs Blumbergs – being hunched over, in a subservient position, all the time in front of someone. In my opinion, a servant cannot be a leader in Europe. As soon as a scientist feels they are no longer a beggar or a pleader, they begin to think independently and creatively.
Next year we are expecting the next international evaluation. The evaluation five years ago was critical of us for one reason: we did not try to bluff about how important we are to the whole world, but tried to prove our importance in Latvia. “Silava” positioned itself as an institute working for the Latvian state, which, in the opinion of the evaluators, was mediocre. We had chosen the wrong slogan. Of course, slogans can be invented and shouted in various ways, but – we very much hope – that the criteria in the system will have changed. We have managed to maintain independence, we have received funding from the science sector to improve infrastructure, thus investing 6.5 million EUR in the development of the forestry sector. We work and cooperate with JSC “Latvijas valsts meži” (LVM) and other Latvian companies, where a close partnership is being formed. We increasingly feel that our work is useful to the sector, and the sector can also use references in scientific literature prepared by Latvian scientists with their research!
Science, of course, is also a kind of market, which is relatively well funded by the state in Western and Northern Europe. If it is important to the state, science is funded! For example, the Finns consider the forestry sector strategically important. They definitely need strong forest science and, consequently, forest science gets enough money – 55 times more than Silava.
Is bureaucracy just Latvia's misfortune, or is it characteristic of other countries too?
Bureaucracy is not necessarily bad – it is created by people who want a certain stability in their lives. The more bureaucracy, the more work. But its creators, in my opinion, forget that there is only one doer, while there are a dozen controllers opposite them with their own understanding and sense of mission. Casually interested in political developments, I have waited, but in all likelihood, I will not live to see a leader on a white horse who will tell the nation that the absolute priority in our country is the doers, not the controllers! Who will say that a controller must not ruin a doer’s joy and will to work in our country, and if that happens, the controller must calm down!!!!
We have very concrete and precise examples that show the root of the problem. There are scientific studies in specific programmes that we implement in direct cooperation between “Silava” and EU institutions. In such a case, the bureaucracy is simple – they receive the result from us and pay for it. The second case is the opposite – if a Latvian office happens to be “in the middle” of the relationship between “Silava” and the EU in that same programme, right here on the spot, a nasty, artificial bureaucracy immediately arises, which is blamed on “European requirements”.
What does the hunter Jurģis Jansons think about the situation with lynxes in Latvia?
A Latvian classic once said that “the Latvian is a tough male; if he is not allowed something, he will find a way!” In my opinion, the discussion about banning lynx hunting is a high-level absurdity. But we see, unfortunately, the already familiar style: someone shouts or claims something without justification, and people in the forestry sector “have to fight back” and make excuses! It is the same as with “deterioration of habitat status”. This style should be changed! Before any claim, there should be facts and justification, not the other way around. In my opinion, one should only react then.
It is like this with lynxes: legal lynx hunting in Latvia is possible because we have a forest science institute in which a strong forest fauna research group works. Scientists can prove that the lynx population in Latvia is stable and diverse, and responsible people can make decisions about managing the lynx population on the basis of this information. Management, precisely, because Latvia is, after all, the land of people, not beasts. And precisely because we manage it, we have many lynxes, as well as roe deer and hares. It is well known how many roe deer one lynx needs in ten days. The lynx is not a scavenger that hides and stores the remains of prey for a long time. Here we can talk about balance in nature. Scientists say: everything is fine with the lynx population here – one year it is larger, another year smaller, depending on breeding success, which is determined and predicted within the framework of large predator monitoring in the “Silava” laboratory. Of course, there are various reasons for population number fluctuations that can be adapted to by noticing them in time.
In my opinion, hunters are also a part of society. However, the emotions of one or two anonymous ladies in Latvia receive more attention than this community of at least 22 thousand people! I know how happy hunters are if one of the hunting participants shoots a lynx! Much more than for a roe deer! A lynx is a high-value trophy for a hunter, for many it remains a dream, and it is unlikely there will be hunters who wish for lynxes, and therefore lynx hunting, not to exist in Latvia! We at “Silava”, in turn, would very much like the forest fauna research group to be able to continue its work: most of the large predators hunted in Latvia end up with us for zoological, physiological, and genetic research.
(Photographs by Agnis Šmits, LVMI "Silava", zemeunvalsts.lv used)