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...

Timber is one of the oldest materials that humans learned to use For ancient Estonians, timber was the main material for both construction and the manufacture of goods. The oldest written records of Estonian forestry history date back to 1795, about forest management in Sõrve, but forestry as an industry emerged at the end of the eighteenth century. The first forest districts in Livonia for...

Moderate felling increases the diversity of open field community species in the short term In the case of clearcutting, a large part of the tree layer is removed and a clearcut area is formed. A clearcut area is a temporary habitat with very different living conditions (such as microclimate and the moisture and nutrient regime of soil) than in the forest. Changes in living conditions are...

Forests cover about half of Estonia's area According to the 2023 statistical forest inventory, there are 2 334 177 hectares of forest land in Estonia, i.e. 51.5% of the entire territory of Estonia [1]. In other words, forests cover about half of Estonia’s area. According to the Forest Act, forest land is considered to be land that meets at least one of the following requirements: is entered in the...

Forests cover more than half (51%) of Estonian land There are alvar forests, boreal heath forests, dry boreal forests, fresh boreal forests, dry boreo-nemoral forests, fresh boreo-nemoral forests, floodplain forests, paludified forests, peatland forests, drained peatland forests, and juniper shrublands in Estonia. The forest is one of the greatest treasures in Estonia, both naturally and...