Nature census – the first detailed, scientifically-grounded information about Latvia’s nature values

The purpose of this article is to analyse the importance of major inventories of nature values – the mapping of habitats of EU importance – in the context of introducing and implementing a nature conservation policy in compliance with the necessity to integrate the requirements of those EU directives concerning specially protected nature areas into the governance system of Latvia. This paper examines the inventory of nature values from different perspectives – the introduction and implementation of policy, cross-sector co-operation and the integrity of national natural resource databases.