A week ago, the "Rīgas Apriņķa Avīze" published an article on the nature reserve in Garkalne entitled "Reason for emigration – the European roller?", promising a follow-up*. This is the promised continuation, which shows how eager we are in Latvia to establish all kinds of nature reserves while simultaneously forgetting about the interests of people – the landowners and forest owners.

In the publication "Reason for emigration – the European roller?", we wrote about the Voronkov family, whose only real estate – 12.5 hectares of land in the Garkalne district – was included in a nature reserve, forcing the owners to emigrate to Ireland. The Voronkovs still hope that they will regain the right to manage their property in Latvia or receive appropriate compensation; otherwise, they say they will remain in a foreign country for life. As it turns out, hundreds of our country's residents are facing very similar problems, no longer allowed to fully manage their real estate due to nature reserves.

The "Garkalnes meži" (Garkalne Forests) association is preparing for European-level legal proceedings against the state

According to information on the Garkalne municipal website, the "Garkalnes meži" nature reserve affects the rights of 81 natural persons to manage their real estate. Two years ago, 24 owners, including the Voronkovs, united into an association with the same name as the nature reserve – "Garkalnes meži" – in order to defend their interests collectively. In a conversation with "Rīgas Apriņķa Avīze", association board member Aigars Orskis stated that the organisation he represents is currently communicating actively with the Nature Conservation Agency (DAP): "We want them to allow us to build at least one house on each property. We are not asking for permission to divide our plots, only to designate spots where construction would be permitted. We hope that they will meet us halfway somewhere, but we cannot know how it will be yet. We shall see what happens."

"We are currently waiting for a reply from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development (VARAM). This is by no means an easy process. The state does not plan to buy these properties from us at market value because there is no guidance for properly evaluating them. According to cadastre data, this land is effectively worthless. On one side of the road is Jāņu ciems, although our properties are considered to be in the same village. The average price of land in Jāņu ciems is 10 euros per square metre. When we were willing to alienate our properties in favour of the state for a much lower price, of five or six euros per square metre, the Nature Conservation Agency replied that they did not have such funds. At the same time, we have information that, for example, in Sweden, the state buys back real estate at market price in such cases. It is also impossible to receive equivalent land plots in our country. Even ten years ago, when I inquired about it, knowledgeable people said that we could forget about anything like that – the state has no free land left."

A. Orskis predicts that this problem in Latvia will take a very long time to solve, and it is unlikely that VARAM will cope with it. If things actually develop according to this scenario, the "Garkalnes meži" association is determined to seek justice in a European-level court. Taking into account the experience and practice of other countries, the court should recognise the rights of Latvian landowners to adequate compensation. Before that, however, as A. Orskis estimates, three to five years will pass.

Municipal vacant land – only for the well-connected and the chosen?

After the publication "Reason for emigration – the European roller?", Inese Andersone, a deputy of the Garkalne municipal council who herself lives almost next to the "Garkalnes meži" nature reserve and is thus well-informed about the situation, contacted the editorial office of the newspaper "Rīgas Apriņķa Avīze". I. Andersone purchased the land for her building plot around the year 2000. She recalls that she was warned even then that a nature reserve might be established nearby to preserve the European roller population. The deputy cannot confirm, however, that this fact was known to the municipality as well. I. Andersone views the situation with the nature reserve from a slightly different perspective, stating: "Here, the opinions of landowners who have a reserve on their land collide with those whose properties do not. The latter, relying on information provided by the municipality that they would forever have a reserve territory and untouched nature next to them, purchased their properties at a significantly higher value than if such a reserve did not exist."

The deputy believes that it is not the case that owners of land in the reserve have no opportunity to use their property; they just need to do it wisely. As a bad example, Andersone mentioned a case where people particularly close to the municipal leadership purchased a hangar in the reserve territory. They knew about the construction ban but, bypassing laws, tried to obtain more favourable conditions and get permission to reconstruct the hangar. If they chose, for example, to grow shiitake mushrooms or keep bees in the hangar, the residents would not object, but the new owners' idea is to set up an old SAAB car club. Practically – a graveyard for old SAABs. That is in no way acceptable to the local residents living next to the reserve.

However, the most interesting thing mentioned by Deputy Andersone is the fact that owners who acquired land plots where a reserve was later established still had the opportunity to exchange them for municipal development plots until 2014. Another matter is that the municipality did not actively inform residents about this possibility... In fact, the Garkalne municipality still owns vacant development plots even now. Of course, such an option would hardly suit the Voronkov family, as it does not sound sensible to trade 12.5 hectares of land for one building plot. However, it is very suspicious that nothing of the sort was even offered to them. Even more – as Andrejs Voronkovs claims – since the establishment of the nature reserve, he has inquired at the municipality at least a couple of times a year about the possibility of exchanging the land plots, but the answer has always been that there is no land. A. Voronkovs remembers very well a conversation in 2010 with building authority specialists who told him very directly that the Garkalne municipality had no vacant land. True, such answers were always provided only orally; municipal employees refused to confirm it in writing.

When talking about whether the Garkalne municipality had vacant land back then (in 2010), it is very interesting to examine the official declaration of the former Garkalne municipal council chairman Mārtiņš Gunārs Bauze-Krastiņš. M. G. Bauze-Krastiņš began his career in the municipality in 2005 as an ordinary deputy. At that time, he owned two properties in the Garkalne district, as well as land in the Vecumnieki parish. By 2019, he already had 13 properties in the Garkalne district and three more in Jūrmala. How did he obtain them? From the published part of the declaration, it is difficult to conclude, but only one transaction is indicated as a purchase over all these years. The most productive for the former council chairman were 2015 and 2016, during which he acquired eight land plots in Garkalne. Deputy Inese Andersone knew of a case where the municipality had been very accommodating to its leader, having exchanged his useless land plot next to a car repair shop for an exclusive location on the shore of Lake Mašēni…

At one time, municipal land was distributed "left, right and centre"

Pēteris Salenieks, who has been a deputy of the Garkalne municipal council continuously since 1984, explained in a telephone conversation with "Rīgas Apriņķa Avīze" in November how the distribution of municipal land took place at the turn of the century: "If we are talking about plots [of land – ed.] at that time, I will say that at first the whole affair came from the "Upesciems" collective farm. I was there myself and remember that we somehow pulled out some plots for teachers from the bogs. We distributed them first and foremost to all teachers, the intelligentsia, doctors, I don't know, whoever else there was. The second thing was what came from the district council. There were those who were still giving those 20 thousands in the nineties. And then there was compensation. Remember when all the legal [land – ed.] owners came? Then everyone was compensated. Wherever something had been built on their land, like some kindergarten, club or similar, they were compensated somewhere else. There by Jāņu ciems, there was an army base [Soviet army – ed.], and in that base they practically gave [land – ed.] to everyone who had problems. Nobody wanted to take it there, then that European roller appeared, and they didn't allow anyone to build."

"Around 2001, we also gave land there to a child born during the millennium – that was just a motive, I think, why it was given, or an argument. I assume that they also gave it to large entrepreneurs who [helped – ed.] the municipality there, then there was sponsorship, then there was barter, yes. We already had nothing then. Then we tried something. Then there were sponsors, then they came, then they did something. I remember that for the Latvian Swedes, who helped us provide furniture and blackboards for the school, we gave them a building plot in Langstiņi for it. So it was always barter, then it was possible, then there were no problems. It wasn't like some strangers came and got something through pull. Land wasn't that important at that moment. There were smart ones who tried to buy some bogs from the owners, there were those who used the collective farmers' shares for land – bought them back from people."

There were those who needed land compensation; they were given larger plots. I know that there [near Jāņu ciems] they gave to everyone. The director of the Garkalne school was given a land plot with some bunkers; he sold it and built a house for himself with that money. What is bad about that? A person who worked in the district his whole life, led the school. Let him have it! There is nothing good in those land plots after the army, it wasn't a prestigious place either, like, for example, in Berģi. There was that privatisation and there were employees who worked in the building authority and were responsible for it. They distributed that land left, right and centre and took some themselves."

P. Salenieks mentioned during the conversation the chairman of the parish council at that time and a building authority employee who, after such privatisation, "owned half of Garkalne parish, and everyone knew it, because those were the times". That will not be enough this time, however, to name them in this publication, because the former municipal leader has no real estate in his official declaration, and the building authority employee, as it turns out, did not even have to submit such declarations…

Nature reserves are being established throughout Latvia

As it turns out, in the last few years, the number of newly established micro-reserves has increased rapidly throughout Latvia, with which hundreds of forest owners are dissatisfied, because their rights to manage their properties are disproportionately restricted due to them. A micro-reserve means a ban on economic activity in the forest, but the annual compensation in most cases does not cover even 3% of the value that the owner loses at the moment the decision is made.

Aiga Grasmane, Executive Director of the Latvian Forest Owners Association, told "Rīgas Apriņķa Avīze" that more than 600 forest owners signed and sent a letter last spring to President Egils Levits, Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš and Ombudsman Juris Jansons, asking to evaluate the disproportionate practice of restricting property rights and to adopt decisions that would promote cooperation-based nature conservation on private properties. The state administration is accused of unacceptable practices in the indirect alienation of property rights without involving the forest owner in a correct communication process, an unfair compensation mechanism that does not provide fair remuneration for restrictions in the public interest, a lack of state policy regarding the preservation of priority threatened and rare species, as well as the absence of suitable regulatory frameworks for such protected bird species that change their nesting sites every few years.

It seems unbelievable, but, for example, a total of 516 micro-reserves have been established for the lesser spotted eagle in Latvia. The large increase in the number of micro-reserves is said to be related to the 2.5 million euro lesser spotted eagle conservation project of the LIFE programme implemented by the Latvian Fund for Nature (LDF), one of the goals of which is to find 500 nests and establish micro-reserves for them. At the same time, it is known that the lesser spotted eagle population in Latvia is stable – approximately 4000 pairs, which is half of the entire European lesser spotted eagle population. Thus, the lesser spotted eagle is the most widespread eagle species in Latvia. It is neither a threatened nor a rare species in Latvia. Lesser spotted eagles like the mosaic-like landscapes of Latvia; they nest in the forest near the edge of the forest to be close to feeding grounds – meadows.

As A. Grasmane stated, the European Commission has developed recommendations for the establishment and management of protected areas, emphasising in them the importance of cooperation with landowners so that nature conservation goals can be achieved. This was done because it is precisely the landowner who has historically managed and will continue to manage the specific territory, and the achievement of nature conservation goals depends on their interest and attitude. In Latvia, nature conservation issues are under the supervision of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development (VARAM), but, as forest owners believe, neither VARAM nor the Nature Conservation Agency resolves the problems associated with micro-reserves that are outside protected areas, or they do so very unsuccessfully. Communication with owners is at a particularly low level, as it is either non-existent or merely formal correspondence, and furthermore, the opinion of the forest owner has practically no significance in the decision-making process. Forest owners call it a practice that might be characteristic of a totalitarian regime – the authorities can come and, without discussion, take away what belongs to you. In a democratic society, there should be no place for such practice…

As an example, Aiga Grasmane mentioned the railway infrastructure project Rail Baltica: "If a large project is being created in the public interest, for some reason the state correctly buys back land from people at market price. In this case, the system is well-ordered. With the lesser spotted eagle, it is different because, first of all, it is questionable that the project was created in the public interest, since we have these birds in almost every meadow. If we talk about the European roller, which is indeed a rare bird, perhaps we should act as in a normal society? If the state needs a private individual's property or does not want a person to manage it, it must be fairly compensated, and that's it! There must be a normal offer. For now, disregard for people dominates; we still haven't got rid of Soviet methods…"

During the writing of this publication, the author was contacted by employees of the Nature Conservation Agency, who very much want to express their opinion. Of course, one must also listen to ornithologists, who in this situation might have ended up in a kind of hostage role, as birds must be protected, but they themselves have to defend against dissatisfied landowners. It is to be hoped that the landowners will have already received replies from the highest state officials, the Ombudsman and VARAM, so there will definitely be another follow-up to this investigative article…
Article first published on 12 January 2021 in "Rīgas Apriņķa Avīze" and on the portal www.aprinkis.lv
Republishing on zemeunvalsts.lv takes place with the kind permission of editor Eva Lūse. Photographs from zemeunvalsts.lv have been used
*http://www.aprinkis.lv/index.php/sabiedriba/pasvaldibas/21879-emigracijas-iemesls-zala-varna (also: https://www.zemeunvalsts.lv/emigracijas-iemesls-zala-varna-)