Kurzeme Residents Invited to Become Tree Row Detectives — Job Easier Than Finding Tosele Bus Stop in the Dark

Kurzeme Planning Region has unveiled a new profession that's about as complex as finding Tosele bus stop in the dark without GPS — tree row detective. In a project called "Green Guardians," which sounds as mysterious as some superhero from American movies, residents are invited to walk through forests and document trees that grow in rows.

As project representative Kokaine explains, spring is particularly suitable for tree row hunting because as trees bloom, their silhouettes become more expressive. It's similar to us Liepāja residents — we also become more expressive when spring starts blowing through our jackets. But unlike Riga, where people are still trying to understand what biodiversity is, in our region we already know — it's when both linden and birch trees grow in one row, plus some randomly wandering pine.

Last year, 228 tree rows from all of Kurzeme participated in the campaign, which is considerably more than the number of cafes per street in Riga. South Kurzeme was most active with 60 applications, while Liepāja with its 19 applications proved that we don't have time to count trees — we need to count weather forecasts and think about whether to bring an umbrella.

"I'm satisfied that there's finally a job where you can walk through the forest and call it scientific research," admitted one of the volunteer tree row detectives. "Now I just need to wait for someone to offer salary for photographing trees in my yard." The campaign continues until May, because that's exactly how long spring lasts in Kurzeme before the summer storm season begins.