A well-known figure from the healthcare sector recently held forth at length about the forestry sector, inspired by someone else's publicly expressed opinion and by a 10-kilometre run through the woods. Medicine is a highly precise, data-driven field, in both research and practice, where "I saw it, therefore I know" is not the safest of approaches. It would be good to apply that same precision to the debate about forestry, wood processing, furniture manufacturing, timber house construction, the chemical processing of wood, energy, science and education (that is how broad a field the subject of forests covers). So I offer readers a sort of "compass", grounded in facts, to help them find their bearings and avoid getting lost in the thickets of emotion.
Let us call things by their proper names
First, manipulative articles are richly stocked with colourful turns of phrase that heighten the message — in this case tree feller, timber sawyer, defender of the forest, greedy forester, forest clearer — all of which nudge the reader towards adopting the desired position more quickly. By the same logic we might call a retail professional in a shop a closing-down merchant, a greedy trader or a warehouse liquidator. Had the author wished to speak constructively and professionally with those working in the forestry sector, he would have taken the trouble to look into both our own classification of occupations and the European Qualifications Framework, which is extremely useful for educational purposes.
Second, manipulative texts are marked by florid exaggeration: for example, half of our forests are clear-cut areas and thickets, the bureaucratic steamroller wants to destroy Latvia's forests, the lungs of the planet are being destroyed, Latvia is a wrecker of nature. I doubt that even the most hardened city dweller could have failed to notice forests in the Latvian landscape. The area of forest land — that is, land where we fell and grow forests — has risen sharply since the days of the first period of independence, more than doubling, and today covers more than half of Latvia's land area. To be precise, more than 52%, or 3.5 million hectares. The fact that forests are growing faster than they did 100 years ago may cause certain individuals alarm, but it follows logically: forestry technologies — for growing seedlings, preparing the ground, tending and harvesting — have moved with the times, to say nothing of the technologies that turn roundwood into finished products.
Do we find it alarming that grain yields have quadrupled over the past 100 years? Is it also a bad thing, perhaps, that we know how to grow and harvest more bread?
The figures I have quoted probably mean nothing to many people, or are hard to grasp, or seem invented. In that case I would suggest looking a little into history — that of Latvia, of your own home area, of your family: simply by looking at old photographs, or even landscape paintings, I think you will notice that in a great many places where there were once no trees, where pastures and meadows stretched out, forests now flourish.
Mathematics, too, is an exact science. I do not know what methods the author of the article in question used to arrive at his half of the country being clear-cut areas, but in reality the figure is a little over 2%. Incidentally, a forest has more than two stages of development: it begins as a clear-cut area, continues as a young stand, then a maturing stand, and ends as a mature or even over-mature stand. The land where we can plan timber harvesting in a regeneration felling today amounts to around 15% of the managed area. And this is the very area over which opinions clash.
Shall we talk about destruction?
Running through young stands and clear-cut areas is difficult, complains our newly minted forest science expert — your feet catch on the stumps of thinned-out young pines — and forcing your way through thickets is no fun either.
I am afraid I have no answer as to why one should choose a young stand for running. I would suggest not doing so in future, since running regularly through a young stand damages its ground cover and has a negative effect on the growth of the young trees. To make running in a young stand more pleasant nonetheless (if there is truly no alternative), the stand has to be tended — and tending is carefully regulated.
Every year in Latvia, young stands are tended across more than 60,000 hectares. The State Forest Service reminds us that the tending of young stands is not carried out during the bird nesting season: in young pine and broadleaf stands up to 10 years old and in young spruce stands up to 20 years old, from 1 April to 30 June, and in the buffer zones of micro-reserves for protected birds, from 1 March to 31 August. For that reason the tending of young stands is mostly done in winter, but a layer of snow makes it impossible to cut a tree flush with the ground cover. Even in snow-free conditions the young trees are thinned while maintaining a certain stump height, so that the plants growing in the ground cover are not damaged during tending work. However much sympathy one may feel for the author of the article, the comfort of runners is not, and will not be, at the top of the list of priorities in the tending of young stands. Young stands, on the other hand, are here and will remain: according to the 2024 annual report of Latvijas valsts mezi, state forests were regenerated and afforested across 20,000 hectares, the largest volume of forest regeneration and afforestation in the company's 25 years of operation and 6% above the 2023 result. As you can see, the forestry sector cares about records other than running speeds.
Thickets, meanwhile, by definition also include fallen branches and tree trunks, and here we see in all its glory the effect of nature reserves on forest management and on the health of the forest. Trees begin to fall in old, overly dense stands that are not managed, where drainage systems are not restored and no sanitary tending fellings are carried out on trees damaged by bark beetles. In forests like these the usual discipline of running turns of its own accord into hurdling, or rather into negotiating an obstacle course, which even a trained runner may find a considerably tougher nut to crack. A valuable forest is not an overgrown thicket that nobody has ever paid any attention to, where one crooked little pine that has never seen sunlight props up the next. Biodiversity is fond of both tended forest and "jungle", but thanks to sustainably managed and tended forests we shall not need to worry about a shortage of oxygen.
As for the arguments about CO₂ sequestration supposedly "pulled out of thin air" — that thin air is science. Thanks to many years of research and the methodologies developed by the Latvian State Forest Research Institute Silava, we know that a forest that has reached felling age continues to grow for a certain period, and therefore continues to sequester CO₂, but this does not last forever, because the natural state of an untouched forest is to tend towards zero sequestration (emissions). That is why it is important to look at this process over at least a 30-year horizon, since a short-term view will give a misleading impression. Once the first ten years after natural regeneration or planting have passed, the volume of wood, or growing stock, per hectare will be a few cubic metres — an increment at least twice as small as the decade's increment in a forest that has reached felling age. Yet by the age of 30 all commercial species have reached an increment of around 80–100 m3/ha, and aspen as much as 200 m3/ha, which is considerably more than mature forests will have added over the same period. In building an age structure for forest stands that sequesters CO₂ most effectively, it must be borne in mind that the annual increment in growing stock — and hence the accumulation of carbon in tree biomass — already exceeds, in the third decade of growth, the increment of stands at felling age by an average of 8–29% for the tree species most commonly found in Latvia's forests. In short: young trees sequester CO₂ more efficiently than old ones.
I cannot fail to mention the clear-cut the author dwells on, which internationally is named not for how it looks but for what it is — a regeneration felling. A regeneration felling is the beginning of a new forest and a vital stage in the forest life cycle, one of the principal types of felling, after which the forest owner carries out forest regeneration work.
The author evidently has access to some particularly secret material, because I have been unable to find a single reliable source (an academic review, a European Union document or a Stanford University study, say) in which the European Union portrays Latvia as a "nature-hating state", in which Stanford University clearly defines us as a "nature-wrecking state", or which claims that our "country's greenery is written in the colour of the dollar on export timber". Perhaps the author had in mind publications by Yale University, in which we do indeed rank rather less than favourably against such "forest superpowers" as Eritrea, the Maldives and Malta (which take 1st to 3rd place). Rankings of this kind are a convenient tool for demagoguery, because even well-grown young stands are counted as forest cover loss, that is, as land being deforested for other purposes. Clearly, where there is no forest there are also no changes in its age structure. Latvia is protected from this: when deforestation is carried out, the area must be compensated for by planting a stand on land that was not previously classified as forest land by its type of use, or else a substantial compensation payment must be made. And as for the presence of pesticides and household chemicals, there is precisely as much of that in our forests as our fellow citizens stash away there by fly-tipping their rubbish.
Foresters are the only ones ready to compromise
Outside the circle of forest owners you will hardly find people willing to leave a third of their property — of their field, their yard, their house or their flat — unused for the common good. We in the forestry sector are prepared to accept that condition, but on the understanding that on the remaining area we may go on working, applying the latest findings of science and practice on an economically sound basis, rather than regulatory requirements that are decades old. Society's need for economic stability and security demands essentially the same thing.
Across Europe as a whole, some 50 million hectares of forest, or 24%, lie in protected areas for the conservation of biodiversity and landscapes. To claim that Latvia has proportionally the fewest protected areas is to display incompetence not only in knowledge of the forestry sector but in mathematics as well. In fact, at least 28% of Latvia's forest area currently carries some form of protection, ranging from seasonal restrictions all the way to a complete ban on forestry activity, yet the author of the recent opinion piece would like to see twice as much protected area so that we might "be more like other European countries". I am trying to work out how one could miscalculate one's way to a claim like that, since in no European country where the forestry sector plays any meaningful role does the area of protected territory in which no economic activity whatsoever is permitted reach 60%. Forest superpowers such as Sweden and Finland strictly restrict management on around 15% of their territory, but with various voluntary initiatives, such as METSO in southern Finland, they approach that same 30%. What is more, a large share of the strictly protected areas are sited intelligently — in mountainous regions, for instance — which does not restrict the scope for intelligent management either.
All the members of the Latvian Forest Industry Federation, and other participants in the forestry sector too, would gladly see not archaic rules that fix territories regardless of how the natural values within them change over time, but a modern approach in which we protect what needs protecting, where it needs protecting, and when it needs protecting.
We have added value, and the chance to grow it in future
And now to the greatest grievance of all — the desire to grow and fell trees as fast as possible in order to make money. On this point the aggrieved party is 100% right! The forestry sector takes pride in its exports of wood products, which every year account for 17–20% of the total value of Latvia's exports of goods and services. The forestry sector's share of gross domestic product is around 6% — not a great deal, but considerably more than we allow ourselves to allocate to Latvia's defence.
We could, of course, reduce the volume of timber exports and replace the wood products made in Latvia with ones made from fossil resources, but that is hardly likely to sit well with our aggrieved fellow citizen's lofty moral standards on environmental sustainability. The doctor is quite right to say that forests provide ecosystem services, such as clean air and water, and that these services are valued in the billions of euros. It is just that we can hardly redirect those virtual billions to cover healthcare spending.
Yes, the forestry sector wants forests to grow and wants trees to be turned into high value-added products, which makes not only Latvia's natural environment greener but its economy too. Timber industry exports pay for our children to be able to plant still more forests. Everyone appears to understand and support that, and yet the same tree cannot be both left in the forest and felled for production. What is more, every product we export is not merely a statistic — it is a job, a tax paid and satisfaction in work done, a wage, heating and life for the regions.
The land and the people are the mainstay of our country, because together we build an independent, well-kept and prosperous Latvia. But that slogan can only be turned into reality by actually doing the work. Incidentally, without the forestry sector 40,000 Latvian residents would be on a plane abroad rather than at work in their own region, and that counts only those directly employed in the sector. The direct and indirect employment effect of the forestry sector together creates around 80,000 jobs, close to a tenth of total employment in the country, including those working in the public sector. Let each of us work in the field in which we have earned, through hard graft, our academic degrees, our valuable diplomas and our years of experience. Let healthcare experts assess the quality of surgical operations and leave the felling of trees and the sawing of branches to forestry professionals.