Category Archives: Press EN

Illegal logging of Romania’s natural forests increases despite court threat – new report

February 24, 2022, , , , , , , , , , ,

New data show that logging of the EU’s last large primary and old-growth forests in Romania is continuing unabated

The data show that illegal logging has actually increased in one of Europe’s oldest and precious forests in Romania in the last two years, despite legal action by the European Commission against the Romanian state to combat it

The report, released by the NGOs Agent Green, ClientEarth and EuroNatur, identifies that the areas most affected by these illegal activities are the highly valuable forests of the Fagaras Mountains. Logging permits in these areas have increased drastically between 2020 to 2021, which has led to a significant deterioration of valuable forest ecosystems.

Following a series of complaints submitted by the environmental organisations, the European Commission launched infringement proceedings against the Romanian state in 2020, following it up with a final warning later that same year.

As the Romanian state failed to act, the European Commission issued later that same year, a reasoned opinion –a final call for the Romanian state to address the problem. This was accompanied by a warning to send the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) if Romania did not take immediate action within the next four weeks. However, as the new report clearly shows, almost two years have passed and Romania has yet to comply with the Commission’s demand.

The environmental groups are calling on the European Commission to act immediately and refer the case to the CJEU – building on the ruling from the EU’s highest court in 2018 against the massive logging of Poland’s EU protected Bialowieza Forest.

“Unfortunately, nothing good has happened for forests since the commission initiated legal action,” said Gabriel Paun, CEO of the Romanian conservation organisation Agent Green. “On the contrary, our field investigations backed by data analysis show that in many precious native forests, logging has even massively increased compared to the time before the EU proceedings. We have submitted the evidence to the European Commission and expect a more serious course of this infringement towards sanctioning the Romanian state’s lack of actions,” added Paun.

Despite discussions between Romania and the Commission, the Member State has so far failed to take any effective steps to halt the destruction of its protected natural forests in Natura 2000 areas.

“The Romanian authorities seem to fool the European Commission. We call on the EU to urgently ensure enforcement of existing EU legislation in Romania. Anything else would be a fatal sign of weakness, not only towards Romania, but also towards other EU countries. Ultimately, Brussels’ inaction regarding the continued forest destruction in Romania jeopardizes the entire EU Biodiversity Strategy and the Green Deal,” says Annette Spangenberg, Head of Nature Conservation at EuroNatur.

ClientEarth wildlife and habitats legal expert Agata Szafraniuk says: “Romania’s persistent failure to act means the situation in Romanian forests has gone from bad to worse. Despite the European Commission’s warnings, Romania continues to breach EU nature laws by approving logging permits in protected areas of its forests without assessing the impact these activities will have on nature and wildlife. If the Commission does not escalate Romania’s clear disregard of EU nature laws before the EU’s highest court, the future of these important forests looks dire.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

EuroNatur and Agent Green: Glasgow Declaration on Forests falls short of saving the world’s natural forests

November 3, 2021, , , , , , , , , , , ,

EuroNatur and Agent Green welcome the Glasgow Declaration on Forests as an expression of will of a large number of states including some major drivers of forest destruction to improve forest protection. However, the paper remains vague, the deadline of 2030 comes far too late and signatories – including Brazil, Russia, Canada, US, UK as well as Romania – do not give any details how the implementation will be tracked and how it will be enforced.

“Although the Declaration indicates a potential change in attitude of forest destroyers, it falls short and comes years too late. We cannot wait another ten years for forest destruction to be stopped, an immediate change is needed. Logging needs to end as much in the EU as it does in the Amazon. In many European countries, to a large extent, natural forests have been degraded and converted into plantations of low ecological value over the past centuries. Still, the few remains of natural forests are largely not spared from destructive logging, in particular in countries like Romania or Sweden. It is of utmost importance that the ongoing massive devastation of natural and old-growth forests is being stopped within the next few years. If loggers will get ten more years to operate, a large propoprtion of the EU’s high biodiversity value forests outside strictly protected areas will most likely be gone – a disaster for both climate and biodiversity,“ says Annette Spangenberg, Head of Nature Conservation at EuroNatur Foundation. 

“The implementation of the Declaration will be key. Similar declarations on voluntary action to protect forests in the past failed greatly. This new declaration comes after the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests which included the commitment of governments to cut forest loss by half until 2020. Unfortunately, the rate of natural forest loss and destruction has dramatically increased in recent years. Our forests need urgent and bold conservation action now – and a change in forest management from greedy clearcutting to close to nature management. Furthermore, EU needs to ban burning of forest biomass from its list of sustainable and renewable energy sources. Emitting woodborne CO2 into the atmosphere is adding massively to climate heating and is not at all ‘climate neutral’ or ‘zero emission’,“ says Gabriel Paun, President of the Romanian environmental NGO Agent Green.

The Glasgow Declaration focuses on deforestation, which means the permanent loss of forests, e.g. caused by converting land for agricultural use. At the same time, the paper, and thus the signing states, remain largely silent on the devastating impact of ongoing logging of natural forests all over the world. It is using the often misused term of “sustainable forest management” without defining the exact meaning. This however would be important as, technically, even the giant clear-cut areas in Sweden are still counted as “forest” in the official registries and clear-cut forest management is being praised as “sustainable”. Logging of ecologically mature forests results in deterioration of forest biodiversity and carbon storage, similar to deforestation and permanent forest loss.

Very likely, the EU’s forest industry is not going to lose any sleep over the Glasgow Declaration, which will most likely also not lead to an end to clear-cuts in old-growth forests in Romania, Sweden, Estonia, the US or Canada – where those forests are increasingly being logged as the biomass and pellet industry is spreading its business.

EuroNatur and Agent Green call on the European Commission and the EU member states to ensure that the degradation and destruction of natural forests in the European Union by logging is stopped immediately. Strict protection of all old growth and primary forests is also stipulated in the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030. However, many of the EU member states such as Romania, Finland, Poland or Sweden continue to log natural forests on their territories – also in state-owned forests. This must be ended immediately. Signing nice-worded papers while at the same time actively pursuing the destruction of nature is hypocritical and unacceptable.

EuroNatur and Agent Green also call on the European Commission to accelerate the EU infringement procedure against the Romanian State to ensure that the destruction of EU Natura 2000 protected natural forests is stopped before it is too late for many precious forests and that the Glasgow Declaration on Forests does not wait another minute to be implemented.

Logs from mature forests are waiting to be burned in a biomass power plant in Austria.

 

 

UNESCO World Heritage Center expresses „utmost concern“ about Romania’s World Natural Heritage property components

August 30, 2021, , , , , , , , ,

Agent Green and EuroNatur Foundation: Romania must respect international nature conservation requirements and abandon logging in all UNESCO and national park buffer zones!

At the its 44th session in August 2021, the World Heritage Committee examined the state of conservation of the transnational World Heritage property, protecting Europe’s „Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests“ and found little reason to be cheerful when it comes to logging activities in the buffer zones of Romania’s World Heritage components. In a document transmitted to the State Parties of the World Heritage property, UNESCO expressed „utmost concern that the current management of the Romanian components’ buffer zones does not meet the requirements of the Operational Guidelines and may have negative effects on the integrity of the property.“

The World Heritage Center, the world’s supreme culture and nature conservation body, urges Romania (as well as Albania) to implement all recommendations, issued earlier this year by a joint UNESCO and IUCN field mission, including a call to „strengthen the integrity of the property by minimizing the use of forestry interventions“.

Logging activities in buffer zones of Romanian components of the transnational UNESCO World Heritage property „Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe“ have been raising severe concerns by UNESCO, International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and NGOs since several years.

However, field visits by IUCN and UNESCO and urgent calls by the World Heritage Center on Romania to stop logging threats to the World Heritage property did not yet result in any positive response by the Romanian state and its competent authorities: Logging operations in high biodiversity value (beech) forests have not been stopped by the Romanian Government or any change to the current management plans of the protected areas concerned has been implemented. For instance, logging in the buffer zone of the already heavily wounded Domogled – Valea Cernei national park is being driven forward.

Already back in 2020, IUCN expressed „significant concern“ about the situation of components of the serial World Heritage Property in Romania: „Logging in buffer zones in Romania and previous logging activities in the buffer zones of, and also within, the Slovak components remain a high threat until all these areas are protected from logging, both formally and in practice.“

In detail, the World Heritage Centre requests the States Party Romania to implement the following mission recommendations: 


– Conduct on-the-ground assessments in the buffer zones and component parts where impactful forestry interventions such as clear-cuts and shelterwood cutting have been permitted, to ascertain the extent to which the effective protection of the respective components might be compromised and the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) negatively affected, 


– Enhance the connective and protective functions of the buffer zones and strengthen the integrity of the property by minimizing the use of forestry interventions; 
- Ensure that any interventions avoid interference with the natural processes of the beech forest ecosystem taking into account the natural expansion of their surface and to strengthen their resilience, 


– Support undisturbed natural processes in all components and their buffer zones through natural regeneration, pro-forestation, aging of forest stands beyond conventional rotation ages, and to not take any decision that may affect the dynamics of such processes after external natural or anthropogenic events, such as fire, within or near the property’s components. 


UNESCO also notes „with utmost concern that the current management of the Romanian components’ buffer zones does not meet the requirements of the Operational Guidelines and may have negative effects on the integrity of the property, urges the State Party of Romania to fulfil its intention to limit interventions in buffer zones and approve new dedicated World Heritage national legislation aimed at safeguarding the OUV of the property“. 


Furthermore, UNESCO states „with concern the potential widening and paving of a forest track crossing the property and its bufferzone (national road66A) as well as potential future activities related to hydropower facilities in the buffer zone in Domogled Nationalpark in Romania, and thus also urges the State Party of Romania to abandon plans to upgrade the national road 66A inside and/or nearby the property, due to the potential impact of this project on the property’s integrity and its Outstanding Universal Value“.

For Agent Green and EuroNatur Foundation this clear wording by UNESCO proves, that Romania so far does not comply with UNESCO and IUCN rules and guidelines and that logging in in natural forests in Romania’s World Heritage property buffer zones has to be stopped immediately. The Romanian Ministry for the Environment must respect and implement by law the UNESCO and IUCN principles and criteria for World Heritage properties and national parks, as defined by both UNESCO and IUCN.

The NGO’s also criticize the role of Romanian state forest enterprise Romsilva, which is in charge of the management of almost all Romanian national parks – mainly advocating wood exploitation interests: “Romsilva is obviously rather a logging entity with no nature conservation skills and will. Its urgent removal from the equation is the first step my country must take to ensure further deliberate degradation of the UNESCO ancient and primeval beech forests” says Gabriel Paun, president of Romanian environmental NGO, Agent Green.