100 stories from the hiking route

2004 – a million trees are planted in Estonian forests

Information

Topic

The story of forestry

Coordinates

Long-Lat WGS 84

Latitude: 58.7443194444444

Longitude: 26.2904194444444

L-EST 97

x: 6513900.2
y: 632582.6

Location

Ähijärve-Aegviidu Hiking route

The idea of a joint forest planting event came from Kalev Järvela, head director of the dance celebration, while preparing for the 2004 dance celebration with the message “Let a single forest remain”. It was decided that the endeavour should also celebrate Estonia joining the European Union.
On 1–16 May 2004, over a million young trees were planted in Estonian state and private forests during the joint forest planting event. In the state forest, 700,000 plants were planted across 353 hectares and in private forests, 300,000 young trees were planted across 240 hectares. Mostly, four-year-old spruces were planted, as well as pine and birch trees and other trees to a lesser extent.
Plywood boards, which were made out of domestic birch and had relevant texts about the planting event burned into it, were provided by Estonian Timber and placed in every area. The boards were later replaced by more durable sheet metal ones. The area of the 2004 event can be seen in quarter VZ254, allotment 9 by the hiking route in Vaimastvere village.