The greatest threat to the sacred sites is forgetting they exist A sacred natural site is an internationally used term which, as defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), means areas of land or water having special spiritual significance to peoples and communities [1]. Based on the above, sacred natural sites in Estonia are defined as things or areas without significant...

Temperate forests are important for carbon sequestration The most important cycles of matter in the biosphere are the carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, oxygen, and sulphur cycles, as well as the water and rock cycles. The forest is a plant community with the largest biomass and a very large area of the biosphere, covering about a quarter of the planet’s land area. The role of forests is important...

Today, in addition to providing economic benefits, the forest is also seen as a carrier of cultural function Estonians have been tied to the forest throughout our history and it also forms a part of our culture. According to the classical theory of the origin of the Finno-Ugric peoples, the ancestors of Estonians have also spent millennia moving from the forest zone of the Urals to the Baltic...

Sustainable forestry helps to maintain or increase carbon stocks in the long run Forests generally store 20–100 times more carbon per area unit than, for example, arable land and therefore play an important role in regulating the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. The role of forests in mitigating climate change is important – the forest produces oxygen from carbon dioxide during...

Human well-being requires not only material values, but also health and a clean and pleasant living environment The forest offers people a number of benefits, some of which (such as the amount of wood or the amount of mushrooms, berries, and medicinal plants harvested) are easily measurable. However, the value of the forest as a recreational place is difficult to measure in money. Human well-being...