Supreme Court dismisses foresters' appeals over logging restrictions
The Supreme Court dismissed two companies' appeals over logging restrictions imposed to protect nesting birds.
The court also said the state should more clearly define forest managers' liability, however.
Forestry companies OÜ Voore Mets and AS Lemeks Põlva took their dispute with the Environmental Board (Keskkonnaamet) to the Tartu-based Supreme Court. At issue was under what circumstances clear-cutting and thinning may be temporarily prohibited, to protect nesting birds.
Both companies received felling permits from the board in 2021 and started felling and engaging in other forestry work in the spring of that year. In May last year, however, the authority ordered the felling to be halted until mid-summer, to protect nesting birds.
The companies then decided to file complaints with the court, seeking to have the board's orders declared unlawful and to receive compensation for damage caused by the work halt.
Since the provisions of Estonia's Nature Conservation Act protecting birds are based on the European Union Birds Directive, the Supreme Court asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for a preliminary ruling in December 2023, in an effort to resolve the case.
The ECJ's 2024 preliminary ruling revealed that EU law does indeed allow for logging operations to be suspended in order to protect nesting birds.
The Supreme Court pointed out that the restrictions set out in the Nature Conservation Act apply to everyone, and that these prohibitions must be observed regardless of whether the Environmental Board has previously warned forest managers or carried out supervision.
This means the companies have no right to claim compensation from the state, as under the current law, they would have had to bear the losses anyway.
The Supreme Court's decision also found that although nesting density may be important in determining a forester's intent, the board does not have to count birds or their nests in the forest ahead of enforcing a logging ban, either.
At the same time, according to the judgment, the Estonian state should define the limits of forest managers' liability in order to ensure legal clarity, since the EU birds directives leave member states a fundamental margin of discretion.
"These criteria could at least create refutable presumptions regarding the intent of the forest cutter or the absence thereof," the Supreme Court explained in its ruling.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Märten Hallismaa
