Riga Mayor Vilnis Kirsis has instructed the city’s executive director, Janis Lange, to talk to the municipal forest management company Riga Forests about the possibility of buying some of the forestland which is to be sold by Sweden’s largest forest owner association and forest industry group, Sodra. LETA learned about this at the Riga City Council.
“I’m thinking about a situation in which large tracts of Latvian forestland are up for sale, and I am considering this both in strategic and in economic terms,” Kirsis says. “From the national perspective at a time of problematic geopolitical conditions, I believe that we must do everything that we can to hold on to these forests as our own property. That is a matter of national security.”
The mayor added that this would allow Riga Forests, which is currently Latvia’s 4th largest forest management enterprise, to expand its activities and to set out new ambitions.
In order to prepare a competitive offer that satisfies national interests, Riga Forests will give priority to areas which are on sale and are adjacent to forestland which the company already owns.
There will also be thought given to joint forestland acquisitions with other companies from the sector, as well as the Latvian state. This will be discussed so as to analyse the potential of the business and the likelihood that it will help the country to achieve its climate and biodiversity objectives.
Sodra is Sweden’s largest association of forest owners and its largest forest industry group, and it has announced plans to sell off forest properties and related businesses in the Baltic States. Sodra owns around 153,000 hectares of forestland in Estonia and Latvia, most of it – around 135,000 hectares in Latvia. This land covers around 2% of Latvia’s territory.
Source: BNS
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