Motherland for sale
18 April 2025
About 2% of Latvia – or roughly 4% of its forest territory – is currently up for sale. That's 135,000 hectares or half the size of Luxembourg. Why? Well, in January, Sweden's largest forest owners' association, Södra, announced that they want to sell all their land in Estonia and Latvia.
Latvia's forest land covers 3.44 million hectares – or 53% of Latvia – well above the EU average of 39%. About half of it is state-owned, but when it comes to private owners, many are foreign. How many? Difficult to say, but in 2019, of all the land held by Latvia's 100 largest forest owners, foreigners had 67%.
This sizeable chunk of land is a question of national security. It cannot be sold to powers unfriendly to Latvia, especially not – Pērkons (our god of thunder) forbid – the Russians. It's so critical that experts are pushing the state to find a way to buy the land. Either way, the sale of the land in one piece will require the approval of the Latvian state.
At the same time, economists point out that foreign ownership of the forests means raw wood would be exported, robbing Latvia of the chance to process and benefit from its own resources. And why is that dangerous? Take Romania, for example – their dealings with foreign ownership, combined with a rather corrupt mix of business and politics, led to the death of half of Romania's ancient forests over the past 20 years.
 | Liene Lūsīte There's nothing more Latvian than our forests. For me, that's where I rest, hike, recharge, think, pick mushrooms, stay the night in a hammock, and more. I know the quiet magic of the mossy forest floor, bird songs, and the thin rays of sunshine filtering through the trees. To me, that's home. But it took us some time to figure out the value of the forests. As a former land speculator told the Latvian public broadcaster, after independence from the Soviet Union in the 1990s, many Latvians inherited land that was once their family home, lost during Soviet occupation when entire families were disowned and deported to Siberia. Getting that land back was emotional. Then, in the tumultuous and corrupt 1990s, many Latvians lost their forests again – this time to capitalism, when privatisation moved in and there was no strong sense of ownership over natural resources. That's where the Swedes and their well-oiled forestry culture joined in. They bought up more when the 2008-2009 financial crisis hit, and they could afford what Latvians couldn't. That's when the mood shifted. It stopped being just business, and people's narrative changed: we're selling out the motherland. Now, over the 34 years of independence, Latvia's identity and self-confidence have grown, and so has its love for the forests and meadows. |
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