In March 2011, a new forestry development plan is put under consideration at Riigikogu (the Estonian parliament), and the National Audit Office, environmental associations, and ordinary citizens alike speak out against it. A popular environmentalist movement, “For the Estonian forest!,” promises to picket at Toompea until autumn. A few weeks earlier, environmental journalist Ulvar Käärt writes on the opinion page of Eesti Päevaleht that the new development plan poses great danger to Estonia’s forests: “By lowering felling ages we spit on many endangered insects, plants, birds, and animal species…the area of old forests in which they make their home will decline steadily.” The National State Audit is critical both towards the plan to increase cutting capacity and the one to loosen conditions for cutting permits, finding that the forest increment has been overestimated and is not based on national stocktaking data. The latter finds that the growing forest reserves have been in constant decline.
The State Audit’s opposition notwithstanding, Riigikogu adopts the development plan. MP Tõnis Kõiv of the Reform Party is straightforward about the matter: “The forest is foremost a source of revenue.” This statement is in direct contradiction with the Ministry of Environment’s official policy, which states that the ministry should strive for balance between the interests of environmentalists and industrialists. [...]
Suddenly, it is revealed that many people have painful stories related to the forest. After all, forest clearings are rampant, and animals and birds become fewer and fewer. All kinds of materials about the bleak situation of forests start circulating on social media. Global Forest Watch, comprised of independent forestry experts, has calculated by comparing aerophoto data, that the forest area of Estonian forests has declined about three times faster than new forest has grown, by measuring the apparent canopy density. . The forest activists groan. National news is quiet.
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