ESTONIA

The area of forest land in Estonia has more than doubled since the Second World War, to cover 2.3 million hectares or half of the total territory.

Privatisation of land started soon after independence from Soviet occupation in 1991. In 2002, 37 percent of the forests were private, while another 25 percent were in the process of being privatised.

The Estonian forestry sector has been characterized by rapid growth of foreign investments and export volumes since 1992. Production in the sector has doubled every two years since 1994 and official statistics suggest it will soon be at the capacity of the forest resource, although the country also appears to import approximately one million cubic metres of roundwood from Russia.

Exports of wood and wood products grew rapidly in the early 1990s, but are stabilizing due to increased domestic consumption and value-added processing. Pulpwood will also continue to be an important export commodity until domestic pulping capacity is developed.

DOCUMENTS

DATE	TITLE	AUTHOR
30/04/2007	WWF Illegal Logging Government Barometer 2007 (No. IV) The Barometer assesses the efforts of European governments to implement the EU's Action Plan on ...	WWF
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10/04/2006	Guidelines for formulating and implementing national action plans to combat illegal logging and other forest crime Many of the governments and stakeholders involved with the ENA FLEG process have indicated that they ...	World Bank
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24/01/2006	EU FLEGT Initiative: Assessment of 'Additional Measures' to Exclude Illegal Timber from EU Markets: Estonia study Analysis of Estonian legislation of potential relevance to controlling imports of illegal timber; part ...	Nepcon and Estonian Fund for Nature (Mirjam Marastu)
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22/11/2005	Failing the Forests: Europe's Illegal Timber Trade Based on trade data for six key timber-producing regions – the Amazon Basin, the Baltic States, ...	WWF
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01/10/2005	Impacts of reduction of illegal logging in European Russia on the EU and European Russia forest sector and trade A report examining the potential impacts of implementing trade controls, such as the licensing scheme ...	European Forest Institute
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01/01/2004	Illegal Forestry and Estonian Timber Exports An introduction to illegal forestry in Estonia and the author organisations' recommendations for ...	Estonian Green Movement and Taiga Rescue Network
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01/09/2003	Organised Environmental Crime in a few Candidate Countries Investigates environmental crime, including illegal logging in each of the five accession states: Czech ...	European Commission
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01/11/2002	Estonian illegal timber laundered to Europe Documents the case of Lahemaa National Park destruction in 2002. ...	Estonian Green Movement-FoE
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01/01/2002	Illegal Forestry in Estonia The objective of the current paper is to describe areas and activities of illegal forestry and timber ...	Estonian Green Movement-FoE (Rein Ahas)
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NEWS

DATE	TITLE	AUTHOR
22/02/2012	WWF says European Union is 'failing the forests' The European Union is coming up short in stemming the flow of illegal and unsustainable timber into the ...	Hardwood Floors, US
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15/02/2012	Europe is falling behind on tackling unsustainable timber trade EU countries are not doing enough to stem the flow of illegal and unsustainable timber or regulating ...	ClickGreen
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30/11/2011	Estonia moves closer to full implementation of timber certification system Estonia has embraced PEFC chain of custody certification, one part of the international PEFC forest certification ...	ERR News, Estonian Public Broadcasting
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16/08/2011	Could Madagascar stance benefit European forestry? Timber and forestry investors in Europe could potentially benefit from a new hard-line approach to illegal ...	KMS Baltics
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31/03/2010	Estonian forests achieve first PEFC certificate The first PEFC forest management certificate in Estonia has been issued. ...	TTJ - The Timber Industry Magazine, UK
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23/04/2009	Webcam foils Estonian timber theft A webcam in Estonia has helped foil some would-be timber thieves, it has been revealed. ...	KMS Baltics
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30/04/2007	EU governments failing the forests Brussels, Belgium European governments are dragging their heels on a key EU initiative designed to tackle ...	WWF
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10/05/2005	Press Release: The Extent of Illegal Cutting Specified - Estonia Data has been released by the Estonian Ministry of the Environment from a satellite survey of illegal ...	Ministry of the Environment (Estonia)
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PRESENTATIONS

DATE	TITLE	AUTHOR
08/02/2013	Preparations for EUTR implementation in Estonia	Alar Soo, Environmental Inspectorate of Estonia
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31/01/2006	Assessment of additional measures to exclude illegal timber from the EU market: Analysis of applicable legislation in Estonia	NEPCON (Mirjam Marastu)
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19/01/2006	Assessment of additional measures to exclude illegal timber from EU markets: Outline of study and country studies	Chatham House (Duncan Brack)
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EVENTS

DATE	TITLE
Tuesday 31st January 2006	FLEGT Additional Legislative Options The FLEGT Action Plan identified a need for new or better-enforced national or Community legislation ...
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LINKS

TITLE	DESCRIPTION	REPORT
Estonian Green Movement-FoE	Estonian Green Movement-FoE was one of the first environmental NGOs in Estonia. The forestry working group is one of the earliest and and most active programmes within Estonian Green Movement-FoE and is currently working on illegal forest trade - 40% of the timber exports from Estonia are illegal.	Broken link
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Ministerial Conference for the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE)	The MCPFE is a political initiative working towards the protection and sustainable management of forests in Europe. It involves 44 European countries, the EC, and cooperates with countries outside of Europe and international organizations that participate as observers.	Broken link
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