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Thursday, 25.04.2024, 06:41
Disaster situation declared in logging sector in Latvia due to floods
The decision about the disaster situation takes effect immediately.
Latvian Agriculture Minister Janis
Duklavs (Greens/Farmers), who chaired the meeting of the Crisis Management
Council as the acting prime minister, afterwards told the press that the
situation in Latvia's forests was the same as in agriculture, therefore the
council had made the same decision as in case with farmers. Instead of
declaring the state of emergency, the existing situation will be declared a
natural disaster.
The disaster situation will only extend to the logging sector, not the
entire forestry industry.
According to Duklavs, it was decided to declare a disaster situation in the
logging sector to protect logging companies against sanctions for
non-performance due to the floods, for example, the failure to repay loans or
to complete EU-funded projects on time.
The logging companies will not be seeking any compensations from the
Latvian state for flood damages which had not yet been estimated.
Andrejs Cunskis, President of the Latvian Logging Association, which is one of the several
organizations that turned to the Crisis Management Council, said earlier that
the weather conditions had made logging and removal of timber from forests
particularly difficult. Moreover, this also made it hard for the logging
companies to pay their liabilities to leasing companies and banks on time.
"The weather conditions could be the reason for declaring a force majeure
situation in the forestry sector so that we would not have to pay
penalties," he said, adding that the companies were not asking for any
compensations from the state.
He stressed that the situation had not improved much since the state of
emergency was declared in the Latvian agriculture for the same reason - heavy
rains and floods. "Soil can only absorb so much water," he said,
complaining about flooded roads, fields and forests. Machinery is breaking down
in such hard conditions, which means extra costs, and logging productivity also
suffers, Cunskis said.
The Crisis Management Council is chaired by the Latvian prime minister. As
Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis
(Greens/Farmers) is on a vacation this week, Agriculture Minister Janis Duklavs
has been temporarily entrusted with the responsibilities of the prime minister.