2018

Participants of LVM Bio-economy School are Heading for Adventures in Forest

Already for the second year, JSC "Latvia's State Forests" (LVM) encouraged secondary school students to take part in the scholarship contest "LVM Bio-economy School". In spite of the cold, on 23 February, the second round of the competition – an exploratory expedition "Explore Nature!" was held together with forestry experts.

Prior to heading to forest, Kaspars Riže, LVM Senior Forest Expert, provided the school students with an in-depth insight into forest life, forest maintenance and management. Issues such as the size of the forest area of Latvia, the definition of a forest, what natural forest is, the size of the wilderness area in the country's forests, were discussed with the students.

At the first stop of the expedition, LVM Planner Juris Māliņš welcomed the group. Together with the experts, the students acquired both theoretical and practical skills. After a brief acquaintance with the surroundings, everyone was given an opportunity to find out by themselves how old the forest was, counting the nearby trees. It is interesting that several participants were convinced that the age of a tree was only to be determined by counting the growth rings that only can be seen once a tree is cut. Pressler borer was a great surprise for them. It is a device that is used to make a bore-hole in a tree and to extract a small chip. It allows counting growth rings without causing any damage to the tree.

In order to better understand the importance of forest tending, two young stands were demonstrated to the students. One of them was well groomed and thinned, but the other was left neglected. Differences were evident in all aspects, ranging from tree species in the stands to their transparency; yet according to the students the greatest difference was in the size of the trees. The trees in the tended young stand were much larger than their counterparts in the uncultivated stand.

Having acquired the principles of forest management, forest expedition participants visited the exhibition  "Iepazīsties – koks!" (Please Meet Wood!) where they were introduced to wood and further use of its products.

Daniels Daņilovs, a student of Valmiera State Gymnasium, decided to participate in the scholarship competition following an accidental study of various websites. "I read about the competition, and initially was somewhat confused about the word "bio-economy"; it seemed to be something complicated and not for me, but having studied and read the materials, I realized that we see bio-economy every day. The theme is very topical, and I liked the fact that the tasks to be performed not only allowed us to explore the resource availability issues, but also to express ourselves creatively."

"I was surprised about a number of facts. For example, the fact that the area of forests in Latvia where there actually no one has ever been accounts of 0.5% of the territory; it was also interesting to find out that earlier fire was used to make clearances. It is so nice to know that in our country almost half of the territory is covered by forests," the student said.

For the third round of the contest "Speak!" participants have to make a one-minute-long  video message to their peers for the International Day of Forests. Videos should be registered on the www.lvm.lv/bioekonomika website by 13 March. Authors of the best "LVM Bio-economy School" videos will receive a scholarship.

To raise public awareness of the growing role of forest resources in addressing environmental issues, LVM in cooperation with the association "Zaļās mājas", JSC "Latvijas Finieris” and the National Centre for Education invites secondary school students to take part in the scholarship contest "LVM Bio-economy School". In three rounds, students will learn, study in nature and address issues that affect the field of innovative bio-economy.