SUSTAINABILITY ASPECTS OF BIOENERGY PRODUCTION: CASE OF LATVIA

The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the sustainability of agricultural origin bioenergy feedstocks' production, including crop biomass, in Latvia. The tasks of the study presented in this paper are: (1) to evaluate bioenergy development trends in Latvia's rural areas; (2) to investigate the impact of measures encouraging production of bioenergy, particularly agricultural origin biomass feed-stock, under the Rural Development Plan (RDP) 2007-2013; (3) to analyze the sustainability aspects of bioenergy production, evaluating the further development possibilities. Taking into account that unpublished data of Rural Support Service were analyzed, the original results of subsidies' impact (e.g. land use changes) on municipality level were obtained. Along with the benefits of bioenergy generation, such as increased carbon sequestration and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the different negative influence caused by some types of bioenergy is also stressed. Considering that one essential sustainability criteria is ensuring the long-term supply of ecosystem services: environmental (e.g. natural ecosystems, biodiversity); social (e.g. cultural heritage, aesthetic value). Besides, the providing all kind of ecosystem services, such as, regulating services (e.g. pollination), cultural services (e.g. recreation and ecotourism) and supporting services (e.g. soil quality) guarantees sustainability of development, inter alia, bioenergy. In general the policy and supporting measures of previous RDP 2007-2013 for the development of bioenergy in the Latvia's rural areas were not sustainable.