In Estonia, governments change every few years, which means that for the State Forest Management Center (RMK) — which owns about half of the country's forests — each new minister brings new decisions on logging volumes.

Mikk Marran explained that under the current Forestry Act, the climate minister — formerly the environment minister — sets the logging limit annually, and in recent years, it has been a political decision typically made at the end of the year. Although each quota is technically set for a five-year period, a new ministerial decision is still required every year.

"The forestry law currently under review introduces a degree of stability: the minister makes a decision in one year and it remains in effect for the next five," Marran said. "The same minister, or their successor, will then decide five years later what the next quota will be."

However, the annual fluctuations in logging volumes do not mean that RMK struggles to fulfill longer-term sales contracts. According to Marran, the contracts they sign always include a level of flexibility. While the general volume guaranteed to clients is known in advance, it is reviewed once a year.

Marran sees the principle outlined in the most recent coalition agreement — that Estonia's forests should be divided 70:30 between production and protected forests — as a very reasonable approach.

"I've been advocating for this in recent years — a sort of in-and-out principle. For example, if we decide that 70 percent should be production forest and 30 percent protected, and then new natural assets arise that require protection, those areas would likely need to be placed under conservation, increasing the protected share to 31 or 32 percent. In that case, a corresponding amount of forest should be reclassified from protected back to the production portfolio," the RMK chief explained.

He compared the current principle of protected forests to sticking your finger into a pike's mouth: it's easy to go in one direction, but very difficult to pull back.

"If we could implement the in-and-out principle, write it into law and develop the necessary implementation mechanisms, it would definitely be a sound and welcome development," Marran added.

At present, he said, there are no examples of protected forest being reclassified as production forest. However, writing the proportion principle into law would establish a mechanism that allows for such rebalancing.

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