Will Latvians soon have to pay to take a walk in the forest or to pick mushrooms? The answer is “No”, so unless you want another example of how averse social media users are to fact-checking, you could save a shred of your sanity and stop reading here.
However, if you insist on pressing on along the long-distance trail of online outrage, read on.
Several hoaxers have been expressing outrage on social media in recent weeks about alleged plans to introduce fees for popular outdoor activities, according to fact-checkers at the Re:Check fact-checking project.
The author of a popular TikTok and Facebook video walks down the street and bemoans the oppression visited upon us all by officialdom:
“We are rapidly approaching utopia, because some government structures in Latvia, those damned officials, have come up with yet another piece of garbage. People will have to pay a tax when they go out into nature. Such discussions have already begun.”
Possibly he meant ‘dystopia’ rather than ‘utopia’, but regardless, he continues:
“Imagine! You want to go mushroom picking – you pay! You want to walk in the forest – you pay!”
Unsurprisingly, this is scaremongering, or more accurately, a wild extrapolation based upon a grain of truth. The Nature Conservation Board (DAP) proposes to introduce a fee for holding large public events outdoors in specially protected nature areas. Elīna Ezeriņa, a representative of the DAP clarifies:
“If events take place in a specially protected nature area, outdoors, in those land units that have been transferred to the management of the Nature Conservation Board, we expect a fee for events with over 100 participants. And the price list we have developed is intended to rank these events by the number of participants. Namely, for example, if 100 to 200 participants participate, then there is one constant amount of 110 euros, and so we climb step by step, reaching 3,001 participants and more, then it is 3,030 euros.”
So the fee will not apply to families who have come to walk in the forest or mushroom pickers – unless they are a family so large they should get an award for repopulating the country, or are engaged in mushroom picking on an industrial scale.
The fees are planned to be introduced for large public events and only in specially protected nature areas. These would include, for example, sports competitions, concerts and similar events.
Why is this fee being imposed?
“After such large-scale events, there is also an anthropogenic burden left on natural areas, as well as an increased burden on infrastructure, which the Nature Conservation Board has to prevent,” says Ezeriņa.
The administration explains that 11 years ago, 400 different tourism and educational facilities were created in Latvia with money from the Cohesion Fund. Until last year, the state allocated 620,000 euros per year for their maintenance. Starting this year, the funding has been reduced by 70 percent.
This means that the money for maintaining these facilities and renewing the infrastructure has decreased significantly. They want to introduce such a fee from next year, but currently the plan is still being discussed. It will then be considered by the government, but it is also unclear when a decision will be made, because several critical opinions were expressed during the discussion of the plan in the Saeima commission.
But that’s probably just what they want you to think, et cetera.
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