Päraküla selts MTÜ vs. Environmental Board

In May 2021, the Environmental Board registered ten forest notifications and permitted felling of forest on 8.5 hectares of land, including clear-cutting on 4.4 hectares. The affected land is located in the central areas of the green network as set out in the county-wide spatial plan. According to the Planning Act, a green network is a system of natural and semi-natural biotic communities whose aim is to ensure the preservation of various types of ecosystems and landscapes and counteract the impact of human settlement and of economic activities. Päraküla selts MTÜ, a local environmental NGO, filed two complaints to the Tallinn Administrative Court and requested the annulment of the decisions to register the forest notifications. The claimant alleged that the forest felling in such a biodiverse area – the habitat of 20 endangered bird species – threatens the functioning of the green network. They further claimed that as the Environmental Board had not substantiated the decisions, it was impossible to assess whether they had considered the impact of forest felling on biodiversity in that area. Related to climate change, the claimant pointed out that forests have a crucial role in mitigating climate change (by sequestering carbon) and adapting to climate change and that the Environmental Board did not assess the climate impact of the forest felling at all. In November and December 2021, Tallinn Administrative Court dismissed the claims. The Circuit Court also dismissed the claims on similar grounds. The Supreme Court of Estonia joined the two claims. On September 28, 2023, the Supreme Court upheld the claims and deemed the decisions to register the forest notifications illegal. The main conclusion of the Court was that before issuing a forest notification, the Environmental Board must ensure that it does not threaten the viability of the green network and take into account the endangered species in the affected areas. Related to climate change, the Court reaffirmed that climate change mitigation and adaptation are among the main purposes of a green network. However, the Court found that the Environmental Board did not have to assess the climate impact of any single forest notification, because the impact of a single forest felling can obviously not prevent Estonia from fulfilling its climate targets. On the other hand, there are no guidelines in force that the Environmental Board should use to estimate the cumulative impact of forest fellings, nor are there any principles for distributing the “quota” of climate impact between multiple forest notification applicants. The Court stated that general climate targets do not give rise to a “moratorium” on forest felling. Therefore, the Court concluded that the climate impacts of forest felling were not a reason to annul the decisions to register the forest notifications