The Latvian forest industry has roundly condemned a UK television documentary which painted a negative picture of forestry practices in the country.
A joint statement from the Latvian Forest Owners’ Association, Latvia State Forests (LVM), Latvian Forest Industry Federation, Latvian State Forest Research Institute and Latvia University of Agriculture & Forest faculty, said the Latvia’s Pulp Fiction programme by Al-Jazeera was extremely misleading and “factually incorrect”.
The programme alleged that fellings in Latvia were double the legal limit and that “nobody knows how much timber is being felled”, as well as claiming that timber from Latvia’s state forests continued to be sold in the UK as FSC-certified even though LVM’s FSC forest management certificate was suspended last summer.
The united forest industry statement said the programme’s use of archive footage of riots on the streets of Riga in the context of the Latvian forest industry was “wholly misleading”.
It said all fellings were strictly controlled under LVM regulations and monitored, with transparent statistics openly available.
The statement said that an FSC forest management certification audit of LVM forests would be held from March 7-16.
LVM’s FSC forest management certificate was suspended last July because of major corrective actions requested by FSC.
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