Latvia 2009

General impressions

I was really impressed by the fantastic hospitality and enthusiasm from Janis (our main host) and indeed all our guides and other folk that we met. The Latvian people, their land and its wildlife seemed to express extraordinary resilience in the face of a turbulent history which last century included two world wars and lengthy periods of malign, foreign occupation.

Today, Latvia appears to be very much a modern European democracy, moving forward but faced with potentially difficult legacies from earlier Soviet domination. These problems include deportations of local people, settlement by ethnic Russians, and collectivisation of farmland all of which have to some extent severed the link between people and the land. Run-down and poor quality housing and infrastructure in some towns and villages, together with abandoned military installations and other communist state sponsored projects will take resources to remove or improve.

Rural depopulation continues as people move from remote and sparsely populated (surprisingly so to my Scottish eye) areas in western Latvia to the bright lights of Riga (which is already home to over 40% of the population). The current economic downturn has left Latvia with some of the most serious economic problems in the EU, timber prices have been in dramatic decline, and the consequences are affecting land management organisations and reducing numbers of both front-line and senior managerial staff (we heard about amalgamating directorships in the National Parks and reducing the number of forest districts and fire observers in the State Forest Service).

Despite the flatness of the country and the extent of relatively even-aged forest cover (> 50% for the country as a whole and >80% in one of the districts we visited) I was impressed by the variety of landscape and habitat variation especially around habitations and (former and current) agricultural land, river courses, lakes, bogs and coastal scarps, cliffs, dunes and beaches much of which has resulted from dramatic changes in the Baltic shoreline since the last Ice Age.

The forest resource in particular was impressive and despite the absence of old-growth areas and relative uniformity in terms of stand age and height, there was great variation in tree species, widespread signs of large mammals, impressive natural regeneration and biodiversity of birds, vascular plants and invertebrates – and all this in the presence of wild herbivores and in the complete absence of fencing - a situation in dramatic and welcome contrast to that in Scotland!

Protected Areas
Despite being a relatively young country politically (at least in its current guise having gained independence only in 1991) Latvia has a long history of conserving its natural heritage. The first nature reserve was established at Moricsala, a wooded island, in 1912 (when Latvia was part of the Russian Empire). This was relatively early compared with western Europe (the first state designated National Nature Reserve in Scotland, Beinn Eighe, was not declared until 1951, although nature reserves hade been managed in the UK by charities since 1899, such as Wicken Fen). Although we did not visit Moricsala, we did visit another Strict Nature Reserve in Slitere National Park in the Kurzeme (formerly Courland) region of western Latvia.

Traditionally, nature protection in Latvia was based on the Soviet system (with its vast land resource) whereby a system of strictly protected refuges or reserves could compensate for any economic activity elsewhere.

Most protected areas are still on state owned land and more specifically on land managed by the State Forest Service. We did visit a National Park, Kemeri, with significant private ownership, unusual for Latvia and although we were made aware that this has resulted in problems for managers, the absence of local staff guides meant we could not really explore this issue further.

At another National Park, Slitere, we heard that the entire territory had been declared a Special Area of Conservation (SAC), one of 336 Nature 2000 sites in Latvia covering 11.9% of the land. However, we also heard that declaring the whole NP as an SAC, including local agricultural land and villages had caused ongoing bureaucratic problems for park managers and resentment among local people. Designating such large sites and including land without features of interest (habitats or species) is something we have actively tried to avoid in Scotland (and indeed in one rare case, Rum National Nature Reserve, steps are currently being taken to redefine boundaries to take account of new community managed land in order to minimise tension). In any case Natura regs allow regulatory measures beyond the boundaries of SACs if features of interest are threatened. European countries have interpreted the Habitats Directive differently and it may be that Latvia, as a relative newcomer to the EU (it joined in 2004), designated whole territories as an expedient solution to meet area its obligations. These Natura sites include four nature reserves, four national parks, 250 restricted areas, 37 nature parks, nine protected landscapes, nine natural monuments, and 23 micro-restricted areas (and we think the variety of conservation designations in Scotland is confusing).


Grazing herbivores and woodland regeneration

One of the most striking things about Latvia to someone who has spent most of his working life trying to encourage woodland expansion in Scotland was the amount of tree regeneration and woodland cover in the complete absence of fencing.

It’s not that grazing herbivores are absent, far from it. We saw roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) daily, sometimes in several locations, red deer (Cervus elaphus) on two occasions, brown hare (Lepus capensis) once, abundant evidence of European beaver (Castor fiber) and occasional signs of wild boar (Sus scrofa). Elk (Alces alces) were also present in small numbers although we did not see any.

It’s also not the case that woodland cover has been continuous – most of Latvia has been deforested at one time or another and there are no significant areas of old growth forest left.

I’m sure the reasons for this abundant regeneration are various and complex but superficially at least I was struck by a number of possible contributory factors -
  • Somewhat surprisingly rabbits (Orcyctolagus cuniculus) have never reached or been introduced to Latvia (although several other non-native animals are present e.g. racoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides), muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus), and American mink (Mustela vision). Even large Roman land snails (Helix pomatia) are still abundant following introductions by Catholic monks in the 15th and 16th centuries for consumption during Lent when eating meat was forbidden. Janis confirmed that Latvians rarely eat them but they are collected annually and exported back to Mediterranean countries!). Rabbits can have a major detrimental affect on woodland establishment in the Scottish lowlands and generally have to be fenced out.
  • It was fairly rare to see domestic animals as we travelled around eastern Latvia even in agricultural areas with abundant grass. It was explained that cows are traditionally keep indoors, although we did see a few small herds and scattered individual animals (as well as two herds of Heck cattle being used for conservation management). Sheep and goats were even rarer and only seen on a couple of occasions. On my return I checked some comparative statistics (albeit for the mid 1990s) and at that time Scotland (with just 1.2 times the land area - 77,600 km2 as opposed to 64,600 km2) supported 2 million cattle and 9 million sheep whereas Latvia supported c. 400,000 cattle and less than 50,000 sheep!
  • Deer populations tell a similar story. Scotland is home to at least 350,000 red deer, 350,000 roe deer, and 9,000 sika deer (Cervus nippon)and smaller numbers of fallow deer (Cervus danna). In contrast Latvia supports 28,000 red deer, 130,000 roe deer and 14,000 elk. I was surprised to hear that red deer vanished from Latvia about a thousand years ago and the current population is a result of escapes from captive populations in the 19th century (much like sika in Scotland). Elk and roe deer are native species but whereas we heard that elk numbers in Slitere have declined recently. Red deer numbers are increasing and experience in Scotland certainly suggests that an increase or decrease in one herbivore can have a dramatic opposite effect on another e.g. sheep removal can lead to increased red deer numbers, and increased red deer culls can result in the spread of roe deer. Elsewhere in Latvia elk are increasing and roe deer numbers at least in western Latvia are increasing fast. The SFS confirmed that they have had to resort to fencing to protect highly palatable tree species such as aspen. It is perhaps somewhat ominous that ungulate numbers are increasing, perhaps as a result of climate change and a consequent reduction in hard winters. There has also been an increase in the proportion of broadleaves as opposed to conifers this century, and together with human depopulation in rural areas this could tip the balance from largely unhindered woodland regeneration towards regeneration inhibited and then prevented by grazing and browsing herbivores – a situation that has persisted in Scotland for centuries.
  • The dramatic differences in annual hunting bags (from the late 1990s) reflect the relative abundance of these game species (roe deer – Scotland 30,500, Latvia 2,100; red deer- Scotland 61,600, Latvia 2,700; elk – Scotland not present, Latvia 1,000). Perhaps they also indirectly reflect the presence of large predators in Latvia (wolf Canis lupus and lynx Felix lynx) and their complete absence from Scotland. Although populations of these top predators are probably not high enough to significantly affect herbivore numbers.
  • Of course all this abundant woodland regeneration is not necessarily a good thing for the natural heritage and biodiversity. We drove along gravel roads for miles through sizeable areas of even aged Scots pine (and more rarely Norway spruce) that resembled plantation forestry with only occasional glimpses of farm steadings and meadows (many apparently abandoned either during Soviet collectivisation or subsequently as people leave the countryside to seek a ‘better’ life in Riga and presumably beyond. The loss of these meadows is causing some considerable concern. However, the extent of the resource and loss needs to kept in context – the corncrake is a bird largely dependent on traditionally managed meadows and has declined in Scotland to c. 600 calling males whereas the estimated Latvian population is 26,000 – 38,000.
  • We also heard about earlier attempts to drain many of Latvia’s extensive plateau raised bogs, and saw for ourselves a canalised river that has been restored to recreate more natural meanders and a floodplain. Drainage has of course resulted in bogs drying out and whereas we saw very natural looking bog woodland surrounding a bog pools, we also saw a large bog which had been partially drained and was covered in small pine trees (albeit ones that had subsequently been killed in an enormous forest fire).
  • Extensive (and for long periods neglected) forestry drainage networks throughout highly connected woodland have provided perfect conditions for beaver, another herbivore with a potentially damaging influence on tree establishment. Although the general view from Nordic and Baltic countries is that the combined effects of ungulate and beaver feeding do not prevent tree regeneration, riparian woodland is much more fragmented in Scotland and deer numbers much higher. It remains to be seen how this will work out with the beavers released in Scotland as part of a controlled reintroduction while we were in Latvia.