Nature-protection project worries landowners

  • 2004-04-08
  • By Aleksei Gunter
TALLINN - The reshaping of nature-protection areas in Estonia under the Natura 2000 project is causing tensions between the state and landowners, as of May 1 Estonia must give its list of nature-protection areas to the European Commission in accordance with Natura 2000 rules.

About 400 areas in Estonia fit the Natura 2000 requirements, a Pan-European network of nature-protection areas aimed at preservation of unique species that is based on the EU bird and nature directive dated 1979.
Although the preparations in Estonia - studying and choosing potential areas that need protection - started back in 2001, experts from the Ministry of Environmental Affairs have little time left to complete the selection process.
Environment Minister Villu Reiljan promised that every case would be considered using an individual approach, as the state has to make it clear to each landowner why his land requires the protection status.
Forest clearing, usage of chemical fertilizers on forest and meadow territories, waste dumping and other dangerous activities will be illegal on all Natura 2000 territories, while licenses for construction and other business activities on such territories will be issued by the ministry.
According to current calculations, the nature-protection areas that now take 12 percent of the country's land territory will expand to 16 percent of the total territory once Natura 2000 is implemented.
The final list of areas adopted by local experts must be approved by the European Commission.
For Volli Sai, owner of a dolomite quarry on Saaremaa Island, the news about his land harboring an endangered plant species came as a compete surprise. He told the Maaleht weekly that he had neither seen any researchers studying plants on his territory nor had issued any permission to perform such a study.
Sai's property was eventually removed from the potential Natura 2000 area list because the endangered plant is also common for other Saaremaa areas.
Still, Minister Reiljan stressed that the rescinding of property rights that may be imposed on some Natura 2000 areas is provided for in the Estonian constitution.
"People must acknowledge that public interests are sometimes above personal interests," said Reiljan, adding that the Natura 2000 project caused fierce debates in Finland and other countries that have joined the project.
The project also offers landowners whose property becomes a nature protection are to swap their land for a land plot of equal value.
Reiljan said that about 700, or 10 percent, of Estonia's 6,000 to 7,000 landowners whose property is to fall under the Natura 2000 project had turned to the ministry for information.
Reiljan also said that with the help of Natura 2000 Estonia would be able to keep its image as a nature-friendly country that had not lost a single species in its ecosystem for half a century while about 60,000 species in the world become extinct annually.
The state's expenses for nature-protection-areas management will increase by 700,000 euros a year after the Natura 2000 project will be implemented, the ministry said.