The "Successful Estonia" Essay Contest | Pille Ligi: Defiance vs. Cooperation. A Contractual Solution in Nature Conservation is Possible

Recently, we have witnessed a sight that should give every national leader pause: tractors have rolled onto the streets in both Brussels and Tallinn. When primary sector workers and landowners feel that the state has steamrolled over them, it is a sign of a systemic crisis. This has long ceased to be a mere dispute over a forest or a field—it is a reflection of a fractured society.

I have submitted a vision to the Äripäev "Successful Estonia" (Edukas Eesti) opinion contest on how we can break this deadlock. My message is simple: nature conservation must transform from a mechanism of coercion into value-based cooperation: 
Pille Ligi: trots vs koostöö. Lepinguline lahendus looduskaitses on võimalik

From Guard to Gardener

The Estonian thinker Uku Masing aptly described the difference between "nature protection" (looduskaitse) and "nature care" (loodushoid).

• Nature protection is like the role of a guard; we assume a threat and protect nature as an external object by imposing prohibitions and commands.
• Nature care, however, is the role of a gardener. The gardener operates from within the garden, knowing that by tending to nature, they are also tending to themselves.

Today, Estonian nature conservation wears the face of a "guard" far too often. This triggers a biological rejection in landowners. Neurobiology (such as the research of Robert Sapolsky) confirms that fear and coercion do not foster lasting care. On the contrary, they activate a defense response. Today, this is increasingly deepening the rift between urban and rural populations.

The Contractual Solution

My proposal is to move toward a system of contractual nature conservation. Instead of the state dictating every mowing date, it should define the desired outcome. How to achieve that result should be left to the landowner—the best expert on their own land—to decide.

Such a model requires two honest pillars:

• A Clear Baseline: The landowner is responsible for maintaining the existing natural value.
• The Safe Harbor Guarantee: This is critical. If an owner manages to increase biodiversity through their care and labor, the state must not punish them with new restrictions. A good deed must not be penalized.

Economy and Nature Hand in Hand

A contractual model opens doors to new types of management, such as the nature credits market. This allows for earning income from preserving biodiversity, not just from consuming it. There is also immense potential for smart cross-use—for instance, why not maintain land under power lines and solar parks as semi-natural communities? This would save millions of euros in taxpayer money and reduce the need to further restrict commercial forests.

Cooperation is More Durable Than Command

We need a system that sees the landowner as a partner, not a potential lawbreaker. Contractual nature conservation is a middle ground that respects the owner's autonomy while ensuring national environmental goals.

It is a step toward a more stable and less confrontational Estonia. Because ultimately, the goal is shared: to preserve our living environment in a way that nourishes both the soul and the family.

When Nature Conservation Punishes Its Best Stewards

Today, the implementation of the Nature Conservation Act (LKS) has been replaced by resistance that erodes the legitimacy of state authority, exhausts all parties with court disputes that produce no real winners, and fuels protests directed at national and European Union lawmakers. For landowners, the issue is one of dignity and a sense of justice, because the state should serve its citizens through partnership and trust.

Today we helplessly watch as 40 - 80-year-old stands with obvious signs of management are variously inventoried as old-growth forest, wooded meadow, and sometimes even coastal meadow. Certainly, a wet commercial forest with restoration potential can also be inventoried as a degraded water-regime potential protected forest… if some as-yet undefined objective requires it.

The regulatory maze has become incomprehensible even to the state itself, from which it is impossible to obtain precise figures on hectares by category. Take Avinurme, for example, a place with strong woodworking traditions, where today there are more different types of protected zone categories than stripes on its traditional folk skirt. Altogether, we have about 13 different statutory categories that determine a landowner’s freedom of action and the strictness of state protection. The last time we counted, there were 81 environmental restrictions, 21 of them related specifically to nature conservation. In this confusion, the most important element in the equation, human being, has been lost.

The best and most honest are punished

Land and forest owners see Nordic rotation forestry as a more nature-friendly and regenerative form of land use compared to, for example, real estate development, asphalt roads, or gravel extraction, which permanently remove land from natural value. Yet it is precisely forest owners who face the harshest restrictions.

Here lies the system’s greatest flaw: it punishes those who do good. If a forest owner has managed their land well and a rare species appears there, from the owner’s perspective this results in the end of economic activity and a sharp drop in property value. Forest biodiversity is resilient and we see this every day. Beneath spruce trees planted 26 years ago after clear-cutting, a Category III protected species now grows. This is factual proof of the owner’s ability to manage in a way that allows natural values to recover without state coercion.

All parties agree that forest management and rural development are important; however, there are fundamentally different views on who should be included in the decision-making process. We need substantive change, yet the current wording of the proposed amendments to the Nature Conservation Act seems more like an apathetic attempt to fulfill a political order with as little substance as possible.

Why does contractual nature conservation, as written, absolutely not work?

First, the current draft limits contractual nature conservation to areas “outside protected natural objects.” Yet conflicts are sharpest precisely in restricted areas or where restrictions are tightened through the establishment of Natura habitats or permanent habitats for species. Very often done quietly. If we leave the contractual route closed to these areas, nothing in the system will change. A contractual approach is also possible within protected areas, as demonstrated by the Sorainen analysis commissioned by the Government Office.

“The current draft avoids the possibility of creating a workable solution and clings to coercive authority precisely where it hurts the owner most.” Pille Ligi

Second, the draft lacks guarantees of a “baseline” and a “safe harbor.” Meaningful contractual nature conservation must fix the initial condition. In this way, the landowner can ensure the preservation of that value, but anything additional created through their care and work (net gain) must not result in new restrictions. Today, the most progressive landowners who preserve natural values are those whose activities end up locking in their freedom and granting governing authority to the Environmental Board. Have the masters returned?

Third, species protection requires dynamism, if the species is not present, prohibitions are not needed.

If we fail to create a partnership based on trust and results, we will continue wasting taxpayers’ money on court disputes and bureaucracy. A renewal of nature conservation can only happen when the owner is no longer a peasant under a coercive regime, but a full partner of the state.

Target: 1% of GDP for Nature – 2024 Mid-Year Summary

The strategic goal of the Loodushoiu Fond (The Nature Fund) is to help Estonia reach a level of funding where at least 1% of GDP is directed toward wildlife management and care —in line with global recommendations by international organizations such as The Nature Conservancy. The planned KEVAD development programme amounts to €1.898 billion per year, yet only €35 million of that is allocated to nature protection. As the area of protected land increases without a proportional rise in support measures to offset the burden on society, we see a growing need to bring private sector funding into nature conservation.

We continue to develop service contracts for the provision of ecosystem services and are mapping potential new funding sources. We have added new nature conservation funding options to our online store, and our donation platform remains active. On the international level, we are introducing the Looduse hoidja™ (Nature Guardian™) platform, which enables foreign individuals and companies to support nature protection in Estonia through local landowners. We also placed a donation box in the Pärnu Department Store to raise co-funding for our white-tailed eagle nest project.

At the COP 16 conference in Cali, Colombia, the EU presented its research on the potential and challenges of biodiversity certification and nature credits, as part of its innovative finance toolbox aimed at broadening funding sources. The goal is to mobilize resources, support companies in setting nature-positive targets, and reward those who protect and restore nature—including farmers, foresters, fishers, and other land and sea managers. The EU’s research includes two pilot projects, one of which involves the Loodushoiu Fond working with private landowners in Estonia.