The Environment Board allowed an illegal seed trade to take place. Where are the millions of Belarusian seedlings?

The company Systemsseparation LTD, which sells only forest seedlings of Estonian origin in Estonia, says it has been illegally importing spruce seeds from Belarus for several years and selling spruce seedlings of Belarusian origin to Sweden, but officially these seedlings seem to have vanished into thin air.

Communication with officials from six countries and analysis of documents revealed that the Estonian owners of the forest plant company Systemsseparation LTD have, under strange circumstances, escaped the control of supervisory officials over five million forest plants.

The monitoring of forest plants in the European Union is strict, both to prevent damage to the gene pool and to prevent plant diseases - every seed must be traceable to the plant.

In 2020 and 2021, the businessmen transported a total of 45 kilos of Belarusian spruce seeds, which are strictly forbidden from 2020 onwards, via Estonia to the Lydemann Pflanzen plantation in Germany.

The authorities do not know where the plants grown from the seeds - which would produce almost 6 million seedlings - were sold. When the Swedish Forest Agency launched an investigation and found that the plants had not been secretly imported to Sweden, Estonian environmental officials dealing with the seedlings expressed concern.

Curiously, it turned out that the illegal seed transport was hidden under suspicious circumstances by officials. Despite the fact that the Environmental Board's monitoring department had received precise information about the transport of Belarusian seeds via Estonia to Germany in the spring of 2022, the officials stretched about the procedure for a year until the expiry date.

Following the Postimees's questions, and after informing the Chancellor of the Ministry of Climate, the The Environmental Board's Internal Control Department began investigating the matter.

In the summer, a scandal erupted over whether the millions of seedlings imported from Germany and sold in Estonia by this company were still suitable and permitted for our forests. According to scientific studies, if spruce and pine sprigs are planted in Estonia from more than 220 km away, then it results in stunted trees and disease-susceptible bushes, that can grow instead of a roundwood forest. The law allows the planting of plants of Estonian or, in extreme cases, Latvian origin (from seed), and it is still not good to plant seedlings from Hiiumaa with a maritime climate in the soil of Setomaa.

The company claims that it has brought to Estonia only seedlings grown from Estonian seeds. The most important independent documents, the notifications from Germany which are required by the EU directive, have been missing for more than seven years, but this did not bother the Environment Agency. Systemsseparation LTD sued Postimees for raising suspicions, accusing it of causing great damage to the family business.

Office misled and company under pressure

After resistance, the Environmental Board was forced to make an enquiry in Germany. In October, the officials issued a press release entitled «Environment Board convinced of origin of forest plants brought to Estonia», which included the sentence «Now the Environment Board has received delivery notes from the German Ministry of Agriculture confirming that plants grown from Estonian seeds were brought to Estonia from Germany».

Following the press release, Cloud Media sent a press release on behalf of Systemsseparation LTD to all Estonian media on 27 October: «Proof: The «huge fraud» in the forestry sector turned out to be a newspaper's fiction».

However, the delivery notes referred to in the Environmental Board's press release do not indicate where the forest plantations handed over by the German nursery to the Estonian company have ended up. In addition to the saplings with Estonian origin papers, almost 1.2 million saplings of Belarusian and other origin were handed over.

Olav Etverk, the head of the Environmental Board's forestry department, and Eda Tetlov, the chief specialist in forest regeneration, claimed that when Postimees pointed out the fraud, they were convinced by looking at several papers together. «We compared the German delivery notes, the company's distribution report and the information notes that the company itself gave to the German factory [about the country of sale of the plants],» said Tetlov.

Unfortunately, the last two are documents produced by the company itself. As the nursery refused to communicate with Postimees, it was not possible to ask whether they had received the so-called notifications and where they knew the Estonians had taken the seedlings grown there.

German official: As far as we know, the plants were taken to England

Johann Henrich, an official of the German Federal Office for Agriculture and Food, told both the Environment Board and Postimees that they were convinced that all the plants had been taken out of the European Union because the delivery notes showed the British address of Systemsseparation LTD (in the letterbox of a block of flats with 213 other companies). «According to the documents, it was not clear to us that the plants were being delivered not to the UK, but to Estonia,» the official explained.

England does not accept forest plants of Belarusian origin, said Anna Calder, spokeswoman for the UK Department for Environment, Food and Regional Affairs. However, since the UK has left the European Union, German officials have not sent any notifications about Systemseparation's plants, and the British have not been able to ask why, according to the papers, a huge amount of plants have been brought in without the customs knowing about it.

«The company also needs to change its communication with this plant and give its Estonian address,» Tetlov acknowledged the address problem.

Regarding the cultivation and sale of plants from banned Belarusian seeds, Henrich told German investigative journalist Andrea Rehmsmeier, who was investigating the matter at the request of Postimees, that in his opinion the country that allowed the seeds into the country, i.e. Estonia, was responsible for bringing the seeds into the European Union.

Who were the Belarusian seedlings sold to?

«This does not concern Estonia, the German plants grown from Belarusian seeds were bought by our Swedish customers,» company representative Tanel Vaasma told Postimees earlier this summer and again now.

However, environmental officials from Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, the UK and Estonia said that no seedlings of Belarusian origin had been officially imported from Germany. According to the amount of seeds identified, about six million could have been grown; Postimees obtained delivery notes for 1.2 million from the court documents. Where are the Belarusian plants?

«I cannot comment on that,» replied Etverk and Tetlov. The Swedish Forest Agency announced an investigation.

«The German officials mistakenly directed the data flow to the UK (where our company is registered), although the destination country Sweden was clearly indicated on the documents, the Swedish officials did not have the information due to a mistake by their German colleagues,» Vaasma explained the lack of data. As mentioned above, the export countries were not listed on the consignment notes that reached the German officials.

According to Claes Uggla, a specialist in forest planting material at the Swedish Forest Agency, no notifications about the plants sold in Sweden have been sent afterwards, even though the confusion had already come to light in October.

In strictly defined areas in southern Sweden, the sale of plants grown in Germany from Belarusian seeds is allowed. «Until the end of 2019, large quantities of Norway spruce seeds have been imported into Sweden from Belarus. Northeastern European origin works well in southern Sweden,» explains Uggla. However, the direct import of seedlings and seeds from a dictatorial state will be banned throughout the EU from 2020.

In the years 2015-2019, the European Commission allowed member states to temporarily decide to allow the import of forest reproductive material (seedlings and seeds).

This was due to a (temporary) shortage of forest planting material in Scandinavia as a result of major storms. There was also a shortage of seedlings in Estonia at the time, but this was due to increased felling.

Belarusian plants brought to Estonia with special permit

The Environmental Board seized the opportunity and gave Systemsseparation LTD a special permit to bring 300,000 spruce seedlings grown in Germany from Belarusian seeds to Estonia in 2019.

The public did not know this: the website of the Environmental Board does not list the origin of the seedlings, but only the country from which they were imported. With the help of the Wayback Machine, which displays online history, it can be seen that the Systemsseparations sapling sales page at the time had an indication of origin for other tree species, but only for spruce saplings. Just the text: «So far we have grown firs of Estonian, Lithuanian and Swedish origin».

There must have been a reason for the silence. It is more than 270 km from Estonia to the Belarusian Semlet, which, according to scientists, is unreasonably long.

Did the buyers of 2019 even know that they were buying seedlings from Belarus? «We imported and sold 220,000 spruce plants from Belarus, grown in Germany. The plants were ordered by a specific customer who was familiar with both the origin of the seeds and the place where they were grown at Lüdemann Pflanzen,» says Vaasma.

If he mentions the buyer in the singular, the central cooperative Eramets, which brings together the forestry cooperatives, in the plural: «The forestry cooperatives bought 220,000 of the Belarusian plants you mentioned in 2019. Yes, the buyers knew that the seedlings were of Belarusian origin, the necessary documents were sent to the buyers».

Vaasma said that after that Systemsseparation did not bring any forest plantations of Belarusian origin to Estonia. Is it possible that they brought them to Estonia secretly? «Why would they bring them secretly?» asked Tetlov and Etverk. To the suggestion that the plants had officially disappeared, Tetlov replied: «Then tell me where they were taken!»

What would happen if they were taken to Estonia? «Basically, they have to send these plants back to where they brought them,» Tetlov replied. «The company would then have to collect them from the forest,» added Etverk.

Millions of plants with Estonian papers have also disappeared.

There is also more order in the seedlings grown in Germany from seeds with Estonian certificates of origin. Systemsseparation itself says it only sells them in Estonia. They could also be sold in Latvia, where birch seedlings are in demand, and in Sweden in certain latitudes.

In the same period when, according to the Environmental Board, almost 5.8 million plants with Estonian papers were sold in Estonia, almost three million plants from German nurseries seem to have disappeared into thin air.

Moreover, the amount of plants officially imported into Estonia is many times smaller than the amount that could be grown from the seeds bought from RMK and shipped to Germany according to the papers.

The Postimees discovered several shipments of plants for which there is no notification in the register of documents about the transfer of seeds to Germany with the same number. Etverk claimed that there were notifications, but that their content was a company secret. «The paperwork that came in afterwards was all tied up, there is no gap,» Etverk confirmed.

However, notifications were submitted for other seed batches on the dates he mentioned.

When Postimees asked specifically about the import of 276,500 spruce seedlings from Germany to Estonia in May 2020, Etverk admitted that «no notification has been submitted regarding the transfer of common spruce seed with the mentioned indication of origin to Germany».

There is a notification for the transfer of seeds with this number to Latvia, but not for the plants brought back from Latvia. In other words, instead of the required order, there is complete chaos in the movement of seeds and plants.

Spruce seedlings. Photo: Elmo Riig/Sakala

Questions still unanswered

The disappearance of the plants and the chaos in the records raised the question of what was going on. Already in the summer, people involved in forest plant breeding expressed their doubts to Postimees that it would be difficult to grow such large plants in Germany from Estonian seeds as sold by Systemsseparation. At the same time, a two-year-old Belarusian spruce can be half the size of a spruce grown in Estonia - the southern origin gives faster growth. A bigger plant sells better. But there is a catch: plants of Belarusian origin are not allowed to be sold in Estonia.

Postimees asked both the Environmental Board and the head of Systemseparation, Tanel Vaasma, directly: could the Estonian seeds be spilled, the number of the Estonian basic certificate stuck on the Belarusian seed bag and sent to Germany?

Both acknowledged the technical feasibility of such a business approach, but denied it in the case of Systemseparation. Their justification was the high price of Estonian seeds: almost 500 euros per kilo.

«Then I don't see the point of buying tens of kilos of Estonian seed,» argued Tetlov.

Belarusian seeds, on the other hand, cost only 180 euros per kilo. If there are almost 130,000 germinating seeds in a kilo, the price of the seed is about half a cent, the plant costs the final buyer 40 times more.

«However, the Harju District Court and Postimees's representatives have extensive documentation proving the legality of the movement of seeds and plants in our company and ruling out the use of such a system in our company,» Vaasma confirms. The same delivery notes from the German plant have been submitted to the court and to Postimees as documents listing the plants from Estonia, Belarus, etc., but it does not say where one or the other plant was taken. Several questions remain unanswered.

Keit Kasemets: The Environment Board must put its house in order!

Keit Kasemets, Chancellor of the Climate Ministry

My message from the beginning has been that the documents and papers must be in order and that the Environmental Board must be convinced that the seedlings grown elsewhere are from Estonian seed and arrive here as required by the European Union regulation.

The Environmental Board has taken measures to ensure that the papers are in order. And according to my information, they have also made a decision that if there are no papers according to European legislation, it is not possible to bring seedlings to Estonia.

The Environmental Board has to put its affairs in order there. According to my information, the Environmental Board has taken measures to find out more about the circumstances of the expiry of the infringement proceedings.

The supervision of the Environment Board is a bigger problem, it is not just about seedlings, another good example is biofuels. It is very difficult for the Environmental Board to do its work because it does not know when these batches will come to Estonia. It is very difficult to physically check something based on papers. We are planning to strengthen the monitoring so that the Environmental Board has more rights and information about when the physical quantities arrive.

Keit Kasemets Photo: Madis Veltman

Rainer Vakra: If all the necessary documents are not present, the import permit will not be granted

Rainer Vakra, Director General of the Environment Board

It is clear that in the case of plants grown outside Estonia, it is particularly important to make sure that the plants are really grown from seeds of Estonian origin. Because of the doubts that have arisen, we are paying special attention to the origin of imported plants. I have asked the Internal Control Advisor to review and assess the adequacy of the Agency's own work processes and to retrospectively evaluate the course of the completed infringement proceedings.

Although international notifications are only one part of the control measures, we are tightening up our position here: in the future, forest plants cannot be brought into Estonia without all possible confirmation documents. This means that if all the documents have not been sent to the Environmental Board by the time the new batch of plants arrives, the plants will not be allowed to enter Estonian forests.

We informed the importing company in the autumn that we were tightening our controls. The company will be inspected again next week. If all doubts are not cleared and the last necessary document is not provided, the import permit will not be granted.

Rainer Vakra. Photo: Sander Ilvest

 

The Environmental Board has extended the misdemeanour procedure until the expiry date.

Until the end of 2019, seeds could be legally imported from Belarus and transported to Germany via Estonia. However, illegal transport continued after that date.

Eda Tetlov, chief forest regeneration specialist at the Environmental Board, and Olav Etverk, head of the Forest Department, said that during regular monitoring in February 2022, they discovered that Systemsseparation LTD had illegally brought spruce seeds of Belarusian origin to Estonia in 2020 (15 kg) and 2021 (30 kg). More than six million seedlings could be grown from them.

«We asked them where they had taken the seeds, and they said they had taken them to Germany,» Tetlov explains. «Then we asked them to file a report that they had taken the seeds out of Estonia. They made a report, calling it a transit through Estonia [to Germany]. We then informed the German authorities about this situation».

«There was a transit of seeds to Germany. We submitted the relevant information to the Environmental Board correctly and on time,» is Vaasma's position on the matter. Asked where the goods were cleared by customs and how he was informed about the circulation of (prohibited) imported goods in Germany, Vaasma replied: «The Belarusian seeds were cleared by customs at the border of the European Union and handed over to Lüdemann Pflanzen».

However, this explanation contradicts the previous story about the transit to Germany - Latvia or Lithuania, which are on the EU's external border, would have prevented the prohibited goods from being cleared in their country, but in the case of transit, the Estonian Tax and Customs Agency (MTA) would have reacted in the same way. «Customs does not check the permits for plant material in transit,» explains Kertu Laadoga, media relations specialist at the MTA. «In this case, the transport of seeds from Estonia to Germany is also a matter of trade between member states, which is not controlled by customs.»

Why was the infringement discovered so late? «According to the Plant Propagation and Variety Protection Act, import control is the responsibility of the Tax and Customs Board,» replied Olav Etverk, head of the Forestry Department at the Environmental Board.

The EU directive does not allow Belarusian seeds to be used for forest regeneration. The Environmental Board is responsible for its fulfilment. «We cannot be responsible if we cannot find out,» said Tetlov. «We found out a year later! We had the opportunity to file a misdemeanour case.»

But the procedure was more than curious. Although Etverk and Tetlov claimed to have passed on the information to the Inspectorate after the company had submitted the transit notifications (in March 2022), the Inspectorate did not initiate proceedings until nine months later.

«During the misdemeanour proceedings, statements were also taken from our competent person, information was collected from the MTA, and representatives of the company were questioned twice (in December 2022 and February 2023). However, due to the statute of limitations, the misdemeanour case was closed on 28 March 2023, as the original alleged offence was committed on 22 March 2021 - the date on which the original goods passed through customs,» explained the Environmental Board's Supervisory Department through a spokesperson.

Why did the supervisory officials drag out the procedure and claim a strange investigation to Postimees: «Since the documents also had a UK address on them, it was not clear whether the seeds had reached the EU or went directly to the address on the documents (or moved in transit from Estonia to the UK).» However, Tetlov and Etverk had given documented information that the seeds had reached Germany?!?

The latter said that, to their knowledge, Systemsseparation has no longer brought Belarusian seeds to the European Union, and MTA added that from 2023, the requirement to submit a permit for forest seeds has been integrated into the Estonian customs tariff system.

According to Etverk and Tetlov, customs will hold the seeds until the import permit obtained from the Environmental Board is submitted. For example, researchers at the University of Agriculture received such a permit to import seeds from Ukraine for testing purposes, which, unlike reforestation, is allowed.

Packaged spruce seedlings. Photo: Postimees