Is Estonia’s timber industry barking up the wrong tree?

Katarzyna Fidler,
Project Manager,
Baltic Sea Conservation Foundation (BaltCF),
Germany

The Siberian flying squirrel hardly ever touches the ground. Instead, these shy, wide-eyed rodents jump powerfully and glide up to 80 meters through the air from one tree to another. In this way they are able to cover fairly large ranges of territory. However, the fragmented forest landscape restricts their movements. Roads or larger clearances in the forest isolate the populations, pushing the European branch of this species towards extinction. Like many other Red-List species such as the black stork, the lesser spotted eagle, the honey buzzard or the grey-headed woodpecker, the flying squirrels require deciduous or mixed forests with trees over 65 years old, which provide more lodging and feeding opportunities than monoculture pine tree plantations. There are hundreds of endangered species living exclusively in old-growth forests, including many species listed in national and global Red Lists, and the annexes of the EU Birds and Habitat Directives.

The woodland key habitat (WKH) concept was designed in Sweden in the 1980s as a legal instrument for preserving old-growth forests and their biodiversity. The philosophy behind it is to conserve particularly valuable habitat patches amidst commercial forests according to legally predefined criteria. The concept has since been successfully exported to other northern Europe countries including Denmark, Norway, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.  In Estonia, large-scale inventories of key woodland habitats were carried out during 1999-2002 and 2018-2020. In January 2021, the Environmental Register EELIS counted over 12.700 WKHs with a total area of 31.520 ha. In total, the area of old-growth forests in Estonia, which meet the WKH-criteria is estimated by experts at about 40.000 ha.

What is the price tag on these vulnerable animals and plants? Environmental economists demonstrate significant global and local economic benefits and human welfare impacts of natural ecosystems – and even larger damages due to their loss. For instance, the monetary value of the carbon capture in wood is 4,5 times larger than the monetary value of the wood itself (1.473 versus 323 Euros/ha respectively, as established by researchers from the Environmental Agency, University of Life Sciences and Tallinn University). However, since the methods used for monetizing even this one very tangible ecosystem service are not uniform, the common basis for decision-making remains the very matter-of-fact and quickly established price of a cubic meter of timber.

The forest harvesting pressure in Estonia, driven by the high demand for low-cost wood products for the Scandinavian market, has been rising steadily since 2007. Annual timber harvest has increased from 4,2 million cubic meters in 2006 up to 12,7 million in 2018. Although woodland key habitats constitute less than 2% of the Estonian forest area, the harvesting pressure does not make hold before their precious wildlife and recreational values. All cut areas are being reforested – argues the industry – however, the bark beetle susceptible pine trees will not replace the diversity and habitats lost through cutting away an old-growth forest ecosystem.

The debate over the new Forestry Development Strategy 2020-2030, which attempted to further raise the target timber yields by means of less sustainable and outdated methods such as clear cuts, has polarized Estonian society. Fierce articles in major national newspapers were targeted at ecologists protecting old-growth forests and at environmental NGOs in general. The message: every hectare of forest under protection brings economic damage to Estonia.

As co-funder of the Estonian Woodland Key Habitats inventory project, the Baltic Sea Conservation Foundation has also been under attack from biased and badly researched journalism. These went as far as accusing the Foundation of representing the interests of the fossil energy giant Gazprom and therefore protecting forests to damage the, opposed as clean, timber industry. This odd conspiracy theory has gained some echo, for the hidden Russian agenda is an evergreen hotline in this part of Europe. Clarifying statements and articles followed, and their reception on social media showed that the popular opinion is predominantly on the side of nature protection. According to a recent study on environmental awareness conducted by the Ministry of Environment, 77% of Estonians are in favor of reduction of the current deforestation pace.

For the record

The Baltic Sea Conservation Foundation (BaltCF) was created in 2014 as result of an out-of-court settlement between large German environmental NGOs and the Nord Stream AG to compensate adverse effects of the construction of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline on the Baltic Sea ecosystem. Based on German charitable law, its starting capital of 25 million euros constituted a one-time non-refundable donation, which is since under the control of the Foundation. Not enough to produce an average Hollywood movie, but enough to work towards sustainably protecting natural coastal landscapes, boosting the quality of the region’s rivers and wetlands and improving living conditions for endangered species such as the wild salmon, the harbor porpoise, the Baltic seals, many migrating birds and also the Siberian flying squirrel.

Expert article 2870

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