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Old or natural boreal forests named Latvia's habitat of the year 2019

BC, Riga, 10.01.2019.Print version

The Latvian Fund for Nature has named old-growth or natural boreal forests Habitat of the Year 2019, the fund’s spokeswoman Liene Brizga-Kalnina told LETA.


These are mainly pine and spruce forests, as well as birch, aspen or mixed forecasts that for a long time have seen little or no commercial activity. Such old and natural forests with trees of various species and sizes and also decaying trees constitute an indispensable habitat for many endangered species, especially moss, lichen, fungi and beetles, as well as birds, according to the Latvian Fund for Nature.


“In terms of biological diversity, this is the most important part of Latvia’s forests, but only fragments of the natural old forests have survived until today – all in all they cover only 0.5 percent of Latvia’s territory or 1 percent of all Latvia’s forests,” the fund’s representative said.


The Latvian Fund for Nature has been naming a habitat of the year since 2015 in order to raise public awareness of nature’s diversity and the necessity to protect it. High-quality grasslands were the habitat of the year 2015, reeds were the habitat of the year 2016 and rural homesteads were named the habitat of the year 2017, and large old trees were the habitat of the year 2018.





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