In 2017 Est-For Invest had made a proposal to built a big pulp mill in Estonia with a capacity of 750 000 tonnes per year. Since the production has required a lot of water they have decided to build the mill next to the river of Suur-Emajõgi. As the mill required the good working infrastructure (including railroad and highway network) it's videlly believed it could be buit near the village Vorbuse close to the city of Tartu. Many environmentalists and scientists have come to the conclusion that such a power required by the mill wouldn't be sustainable for the local enviroment and instead would make a big and long lasting negative impact on biodiversity, water quality, fish resources of the river of Emajõgi and the country as a whole. And also on climate change. Since 2017 local envriomental group Eesti Metsa Abiks (Estonian Forest Aid) and many other people have been activelly involed in action to stop Est-For Invest's plans from being realized.

By May 2018 it looked as if the project could be stopped (5).  It was reported that the people of Estonia were struggling to prevent this ‘biorefinery’, which would consume a quarter of Estonia’s wood supply and pollute the country’s second largest river, opposition received support from concerned organisations all over the world. Estonian civil society groups, the City of Tartu, the former prime minister and many prominent scientists have already made public statements of their opposition and tomorrow, thousands of Estonians will take to the streets to protest the proposed Est-For pulp mill and energy plant and demand that the government show it a red light. The Environmental Paper Network (EPN) released a discussion document: "Bio-refinery: new name, dirty old story" detailing the concerns of civil society, scientists and politicians about the proposed ‘Est-For’ pulp mill and energy plant. Mandy Haggith, co-ordinator of the EPN said, "The promotors of Est-For want people to think that their biorefinery would be something shiny and clean, but in fact it would be a pulp mill using dirty old-fashioned technology, coupled to a forest-guzzling energy plant. We hope that the Estonian government will listen to the concerns of the people and that potential investors will tune into the discussion about the environmental and social risks of the project before considering financing it." Siim Kuresoo, of the Estonian Fund for Nature said “Any new timber industry development should have strong, binding commitments to source sustainable wood and minimise emissions. Est-For is unclear about how it will achieve either of these objectives. Considering the size of the planned project, the risks of large-scale negative impacts are high". 

Meanwhile, the city of Tartu has declared itself stronly against the project. "The city council of Tartu demands that the government call off the plan. Tartu residents collected 8 000 signatures from persons opposing the construction. The council recognises that the potential for emission of pollutants is extremely high, endangering the city’s future itself. Additionally, the city council states that the whole process of evaluating the pulp mill project has not been transparent or inclusive enough.(6). 

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