2018

Latvia's Honorary Consuls Visit JSC "Latvia's State Forests"

On Tuesday, 3 July, Latvia's Honorary Consuls representing 58 countries visited JSC "Latvia's State Forests". The visit was held within the framework of a meeting of the Latvia's Honorary Consuls organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this meeting, the officials were informed about the current state of foreign affairs, economic development and opportunities for economic cooperation, including participation in export promotion.

During the visit, the Honorary Consuls got acquainted with the latest experience in the management of state forests, as well as the implementation of the sustainable forest management policy and forest growth in Latvia. Our visitors were impressed by the fact that Latvia is the only country in Europe that has not only doubled its forest area over the last hundred years, but has also managed to increase the amount of standing timber 3.5 times. The guests were surprised that on average 47 cubic metres of wood grow in Latvia every minute.

Speaking about LVM as a leader in sustainable forest management and growing of forest seedlings, the work of LVM structural unit "LVM Sēklas un stādi" (LVM Seeds and Plants) was specially highlighted. Its employees take care of the creation and maintenance of a seed reserve so that good quality material is always available for the restoration of state forests.

The visitors praised the LVM GEO platform as one of the company's most innovative products; the platform is intended for viewing, processing and analysing various geospatial data. LVM GEO includes desktop, browser and mobile application solutions for working with a single base; this product is used by both the employees of the company as well as other forest owners.

Since 2002, every two years the Ministry of Foreign Affairs holds the meeting of Latvia's Honorary Consuls in Riga. Such meetings have already become a tradition that allows Latvia to promote economic, cultural and consular cooperation, especially in countries where Latvia has no diplomatic representation.

Since its foundation in 1999, Joint Stock Company "Latvia’s State Forests" implementing sustainable forest management has paid one billion euros to state and local government budgets. LVM's economic activities are carried out by maintaining and recovering forests, taking care of nature conservation, recreation opportunities and increasing timber volumes, as well as investing in expanding the forest land and developing forest infrastructure - renovation of drainage systems and forest road construction. The volume of timber in the forests managed by LVM increases by 12 million cubic metres annually.