Latvia is one of the greenest countries in Europe, as it invests significant resources in preserving natural diversity and remunerating environmental workers. However, all the seemingly large sums of money that have been invested in environmental projects so far can now be seen as pocket change. The most expensive environmental project in the history of Latvia has been launched with a planned budget of almost 144 million euros!
It is so much money that many employees from the Nature Protection Board and some from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development have already moved to work on the project. Its full name is “LIFE Integrated Project “Optimising the Management and Management of Natura 2000 Protected Areas” No.LIFE19 IPE/LV/000010, LIFE-IP LatViaNature.” Wonderful salaries and interesting work for hundreds of people are guaranteed until December 31, 2028.
Until now, the most expensive environmental project in Latvia was considered to be the so-called Nature Census, which is rapidly coming to an end. 10.2 million euros were allocated for the identification of Latvia's natural resources - to draw up protection plans for several valuable nature territories and to count habitats throughout Latvia. The government has not yet decided what to do with the information obtained. At the moment, the project is nearing completion, funding has been spent, but against the background of the new project, this river of money was just a tiny stream.
The short name for the new project has been created only in English - "LatViaNature". There is no catchy name in Latvian for publicity purposes. And the publicity itself has been disproportionately modest compared to the planned funding of the project. There are almost no publications or broadcasts. On the Latvian version of the website of the project, there is a link to one Latvian Radio program on invasive species, in which this particular project is not mentioned at all. Publicity is currently nonexistent. But the control of invasive species is indeed one of the areas of the project. The others mentioned in the description are the following: nature protection system in Latvia, Natura 2000 sites, nature protection plans, compensation mechanisms in nature protection, grassland and forest habitats of EU significance, business opportunities in nature diversity, IT system for nature data, informing the public.
The project covers the widest possible range of topics, and accordingly it is possible to work on whatever any environmental worker prefers: writing papers, caring for meadows or instructing private property owners. Here are the main objectives and tasks of the project listed in the description:
* To improve the conservation status of habitats and species through wise planning and effective management
* To improve the efficiency of the Natura 2000 network
* To improve the nature management planning system at the site level by making it more flexible and effective
* To develop effective motivating mechanisms to support consistent nature conservation on private lands
* To develop an effective system for control and management of invasive alien species
* To create a modern, centralised data portal for the nature conservation sector
* To strengthen the capacity of stakeholders, including national authorities, and to enhance collaboration among governmental, non-governmental sectors and scientific institutions
* To increase stakeholder involvement and to raise awareness of specific target groups, especially private landowners, regarding nature conservation in general and specific areas of the IP
* To raise awareness of the general public on nature conservation issues and to increase their knowledge and voluntary involvement in biodiversity conservation
These measures will be implemented over 8 years. 10 partner organizations are involved in the project. The leading partner is the Nature Protection Board. The others count as cooperation partners. These include the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development, four universities, the Latvian State Forests, the Latvian Rural Advisory and Training Centre, as well as two state non-governmental organizations - the Latvian Fund for Nature and the World Wildlife Fund. Together, they plan to spend 133,824,260 euros. Of this, 7.8 million is national funding, 11.7 million is EU funding for the Life program, and the bulk of the money is called "supplementary funding" of 114,340,087 euros. It will come from a variety of sources, including the Cohesion Fund, the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, the Norwegian Financial Mechanism, Horizon 2020 and others.
The official description of the project explains that "The planned activities will allow to create a clear and reasonable nature protection system that balances the interests of both preservation of nature values and economic development, is understandable to everyone and will serve not only current but also future generations." But there is also an unofficial explanation for why such grandiose money should be invested in such diverse and even unrelated activities. The Latvian state would do all these measures anyway - take care of habitats, review the compensation system for private property owners, and provide work and wages for a wide group of environmental workers. A way has now been found to do this with European Union taxpayers' money while preserving the national budget. It is this project: “LIFE Integrated Project “Optimising the Management and Management of Natura 2000 Protected Areas” No.LIFE19 IPE/LV/000010, LIFE-IP LatViaNature.”
The project's leading partner has started using money with the purchase of a minibus worth 74,380 and the purchase of a car (without no price mentioned). In its turn, the cooperation partner, the University of Latvia, plans to purchase improvements to its Botanical Garden for 238,528 euros:
“Establishment of model areas for biodiversity demonstration in the Botanical Garden of the University of Latvia (activity C.8). Expositions: "Morphological and biological beds" and "Medicinal plants"."
To each their own, I guess.
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