Announcements

On november 27th the 1st Co-Creation National Workshop "Sustainable Land Use in the Context of Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss" took place on Saaremaa island. The workshop was organized by the Estonian University of Life Sciences within the project "Europe-LAND".

Altogether 32 persons participated and provided their input about expectations and current opinions related to the workshop's topics. Participants included local farmers as well as representatives of several organizations and institutions. The workshop was successful and productive.

Very general and preliminary conclusions from the discussions held indicate that people can see and sense changes in climate themselves. These changes are mostly experienced through droughts and a lack of water.  At the same time, they feel there is a lack of official guidance related to these issues. Small-scale farming is becoming more complicated due to limited resources and, therefore, a lack of financial buffering ability. Nature protection and subsidy-related rules lack flexibility, and inspections can be impractical, causing bureaucratic problems (e.g., if an animal is missing one ear tag, it becomes a bureaucratic issue). Coastal meadows are being restored but lack ongoing maintenance resources.

Political and legislative factors were considered the main contributors to changes in land use in Estonia. At the same time about half of participants felt that current policies contribute to sustainable land use in Estonia only to a small or very small extent. One problem pointed out was related to solar parks. A lot of farmland is now used for solar panels, leading to the wastage of valuable farmland. After about 20 years, we could have numerous depreciated solar parks that no one wants to renew, creating an even bigger problem.

More information: Anton Shkaruba, ashkaruba@emu.ee