Implications of the nature of forestry and wood enterprises in Latvia

Abstract

Latvia has a significantly developed forestry sector, which accounts for the largest share of the state's income under the management of the Ministry of Agriculture. Latvian State Forests manages a forest area of 1.4 million hectares, but the total managed area reaches 1.6 million hectares. The Total turnover of Latvia's State forests in 2021 reached 405.3 million euros. Irrespective of the success of the forest sector in Latvia, the structure and organization suffer setbacks such as the imperfections such as misinformation and other poor practices to the forest owners that benefit wood-buying companies and other countries such as Sweden. Understing the Latvian forest sector's challenges could improve it to meet the sustainability aspects, private forest owner needs, and welfare in the forest business. We conducted and presented qualitative and exploratory studies on Latvian forests at the macro level. Moreover, the study demonstrates the implications of the nature of forestry and wood enterprises in Latvia as well as recommendations for forest sustainability.