Promoting Reforestation in Estonia

Reforestation of clear-cut areas has been considered one of the most critical topics of forest management in Estonia during the last 15 years. Experts have given alarming assessments especially about the situation in private forests. In the paper the use of different tools, implemented by forest authorities for the sake of reforestation has been analyzed. The results of National Forest Inventory and inventories made by the Centre Forest Protection and Silviculture have been used to describe the preliminary results in the forest. The intervention of government into forest management confined to legislation during the 1990ies but since the end of the century, financial instruments have also been used. It has been planned by the Ministry of Environment to implement a guarantee fund related to forest regeneration. Costs and benefits of creating such a guarantee fund were analyzed. Preliminary calculations indicated that long-term revenues and short-term costs were almost equal when taking into account all private forests. Authors suggest to link guarantee payments with financial incentives