Few days ago I published article "Latvia goes green and ends campaign “Oxygen”". But later in that day I read that Latvia's state forests decided to not use FSC certificate, although  it was still valid until 24th august, 2011.

So, what is Latvia's state forests? As it can be read in their homepage, Latvijas valsts meži (in Latvian; a.k.a LVM) is "state-owned forest in a way which ensures that the forest satisfies publicly accepted ecological and social needs, that the value of the forest is preserved and increased, and that the amount of income which the state receives as an owner of forestland is enhanced. At least 20% of the forest that is managed by LVM is managed with the goal of preserving and expanding biological diversity and at protecting the environment.  Elsewhere the main goal is to extract as much valuable timber as is possible."

They even have Environmental Policy. It includes long and short term strategy, which says:

• To ensure the sale of FSC-certified growing trees and assorted roundwood from all of the LVM-managed forests.
• FSC certification is to be upheld in all managed forests.

Unfortunately LVM decided to ignore their own strategy and pronciples and in their latest statement (in Latvian) said that "We have previously reported that the JSC "Latvian State Forests" look at all "about" and "against" supporting the FSC certification of state forests suspension, unless a substantial improvement of the certification procedure for transparency and audit quality processes. Currently, the FSC audit report is distributed to the public, and the report clearly turning a large part of this decision cause. (..) The previous year, direct costs of the certification process the company has grown, while arrivals from abroad auditor qualification levels are significantly decreased, both for their own audit procedures - observations of nature, and the minutes of fixation, preparation of findings and conclusions, as well as the auditors' qualifications in forestry and forest management issues. The auditors have demonstrated the unequal treatment of the various proposals received from interested parties as well as they have not been evaluated by the substance. The company has repeatedly said that the same observation in nature often are treated differently, in one case, they are considered appropriate for all criteria, but the second - finding non-compliance. Totally unacceptable are widely applied to the audit practice - to generalize the findings to the national scale, based on a single tree bark, or similar "irregularities", and further build on these findings unenforceable requirements as a company whose sales associated with a major dimension of economic consequences."

Wold Wildlife Fund didnt want it be silenced down, and they published statement which says that: "FSC auditors' findings are listed facts about the practice of LVM managed forests. Worrying that the LVM started felling concentration, forming a continuous, wide cutting area. This is done without assessing the impact on forests and natural systems, and apart from the new method with the public. The national forests have been prepared or has already developed felling in protected forests, but LVM is still unable to prevent such cases. LSF procedures laid down in the forest during the logging does not prevent damage to valuable forest and the sections are not always fully implement the protection requirements of felling. Forest logging and timber transport is damaged during ground and forest soil (this can happen, for example, to transport large rice leaves in the forest - the forest through the work inopportune time).  In fact, the situation of the forests could be even worse than it appears from the audit report. A number of worrying factors not assessed in the context of an audit or will be dealt with in the coming years. For example, is assessed the same amount of wood dramatic increase in recent years, the ambitious and costly forest road construction and reconstruction, restoration of drainage systems, which can threaten rare species to promote Latvian nature of the further spread of alien species or even permanently alter the forest."

As I said in my latest article "The 2008 World Environmental Performance Index by Yale University placed Latvia at the top of the list among the most environmentally friendly countries in Eastern Europe and 8th in the world. This year World Environmental Performance Index placed Latvia in 21th place." In this Environmental Performance Index can be seen that Latvia's EPI score is 72.5, meanwhile the average EPI score for Europe is 71.5!

Decision not to use the FSC certificate could be explained by the desire to earn more. Unfortunately, the Latvian State Forests reject such a possibility, but meanwhile thay can not specifically explain why they dediced to not use FSC certificate. This decision may adversely affect not only Latvian, but also whole European ecosystem.

Main picture by Infinity, uploaded on Youthmedia.eu; Last picture by Latvia's state forests