2019

This Peat Extraction Season has been Longer than Other Years

JSC “Latvia's State Forests” (LVM) has currently leased peat extraction areas in 54 peat deposits throughout the territory of Latvia, which together make up more than 17 thousand hectares. Peat extraction works are carried out by co-operation partners.

This spring was favourable for the extraction of peat, as the sunny and dry weather conditions in the peat fields allowed starting work almost a month earlier than in previous years. Consequently, this year's peat extraction season has been longer than in other years – it started already in the middle of April and ended at the beginning of September. This year, both milled peat and block peat have been obtained in the leased areas; work has also been done to prepare new extraction areas.

“The season for peat extraction has been good overall. Despite the relatively long extraction period, summer precipitation has made itself known, therefore projected extraction this year could be around 1 000 000 tonnes of peat, but precise information will not be available until early 2020, when the mining data will be collected. If we compare the extraction volumes in 2018, the extracted volume a year ago was 1 412 000 tons of peat with a relative humidity of 40%,” tells Dace Ozola, Latvian Peat Association Project Manager.

Despite the fact that peat extraction areas are leased and extraction works are performed by LVM partners, LVM pays increasing attention to fire safety issues, making sure that its partners ensure compliance with environmental and labour protection measures in the leased areas and implement fire prevention measures.

LVM and its co-operation partners are evaluating what further actions or measures would both enhance fire safety in the bogs, as well as co-operation in emergency situations.