Romania: The government’s own monitoring website reveals “live” the ongoing destruction of protected forests

“Habitat tree funeral” – EuroNatur / Agent Green: EU must speed up infringement procedure to avoid further destruction of Natura 2000 sites.

Members of the European Parliament  urge EU Commission to ensure overhaul of logging permissions in Romanian Natura 2000 sites.

Experts from EuroNatur Foundation and Agent Green have conducted thorough checks of the Romanian government’s own Forest Inspector website (“Inspectorul Pădurii”) and have unveiled some extremely disturbing findings. The ‘control’ images of trucks hauling trees from Romania’s forests (which have to be uploaded by the truck drivers themselves) reveal the scandalous extent of the continued destruction of outstandingly precious forests in Natura 2000 areas. The images show hundreds of giant and centuries old methuselah trees, cut down in protected areas and loaded on trucks every single day. This digital ‘habitat tree funeral’ provides realtime “live” reporting of one of the biggest nature destruction scandals in the EU.

As not all truck transports on the website are illustrated with photographs and illegal logging transports have no entry on the Forest Inspector website at all, the tragedy in the vanishing natural forests of Romania is most likely even bigger.

These images give objective and independent proof of the scandal of ongoing logging in high biodiversity value forests in Romanian Natura 2000 sites, national parks and other protected areas.

The sheer volume of cut down habitat trees on the website is overwhelming.

“The fact that these images (see below; comment) are being uploaded and published on an official governmental web server in 24/7 rolling coverage, without the relevant politicians and authorities taking any immediate action to protect these forests, is really mind-boggling. The government and authorities are obviously aware of these images illustrating the progressive destruction of many of Europe’s most valuable forest habitats. This is a tragedy and its utterly unacceptable. The European Commission must speed up with the infringement procedure in order to contain the destruction of many of EU’s last intact old growth and primary forests now“, Annette Spangenberg, Head of Conservation at EuroNatur Foundation says.

Images gallery 1: Domogled-Valea Cernei Natura 2000 site/ national park

Images of logging trucks loaded with (old growth habitat) trees from natural forest stands in Domogled -Valea Cernei national park / Natura 2000 site (images downloaded all on March 25, 2021). The images have been taken and uploaded by logging operators.

These images are just a tiny percentage of the screen shots from the Forest Inspector website taken within the last couple of weeks.

The European Commission launched an infringement procedure against the Romanian state in February 2020 due to violations of EU law including the illegal logging in Natura 2000 protected forests. Since the EU Commission published a clear and critical “reasoned statement” in July 2020, the process has not yielded any outcome that has stopped this destruction from continuing.

In the meantime, indications have emerged that Romania is apparently trying to stall the procedure with the promise of a some adjustments of national laws to EU legislation. These legislative changes would not have any impact on already approved 10-years logging plans. So the deliberate destruction of EU protected forests – before the eyes of the public – would continue.

“If the EU Commission accepts that Romania is only obliged to improve EU compliance of some laws but not be urged to overhaul all existing logging permissions concerning natural forests in Natura 2000 sites, that would be a serious setback for the entire EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030, the Green Deal and the implementation of Natura 2000 throughout the EU”, Annette Spangenberg adds.

Members of EU Parliament urge European Commission to ensure logging of natural forests in Natura 2000 is halted

This opinion was also expressed recently in a letter by several Members of the European Parliament to the European Commission: “If the infringement proceedings were closed without ensuring that the current logging impact on primary and old-growth forest in Romania is significantly reduced it would also seriously hamper the Green Deal and the EU’s embedded Biodiversity Strategy 2030. It would also be completely contradictory if on the one hand the European Commission is willing to invest into planting 3 billion trees in the EU while on the other hand the massive felling of old-growth forests is accepted.”

The MEPs Martin Häusling, Anna Deparnay-Grunenberg, Thomas Waitz, Sarah Wiener and Michal Wiezik conclude: “We call for the necessary suspension and complete overhaul of all forest management plans and logging licenses affecting Natura 2000 sites and primary/old-growth forests and finding a solution to compensate owners accordingly. Romania’s primary and old growth forests need to be preserved according to the objectives of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and the EU Green Deal.“

Images gallery 2: Fagaras Mountains Natura 2000 site

Images of logging trucks loaded with (old growth habitat) trees from natural forest stands in Fagaras Mountains Natura 2000 site (images downloaded all on March 25, 2021). The images have been taken and uploaded by logging operators. 

Images gallery 3: Frumoasa Natura 2000 site

Images of logging trucks loaded with (old growth habitat) trees from natural forest stands in Frumoasa Natura 2000 site (images downloaded all on March 25, 2021). The images have been taken and uploaded by logging operators. 

Romania fails to properly manage World Heritage buffer zones – UNESCO/IUCN

Report about Reactive Monitoring Mission in 2019 published only recently: Romania does “not meet” international guidelines
EuroNatur and Agent Green call on Romania to immediately remove state forestry enterprise Romsilva from all protected area management duties and adopt site management according to international UNESCO/IUCN guidelines and EU legislation.

A few days ahead of the International Day of Forests on (March 21) a “Report on the joint World Heritage Centre / IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Reactive Monitoring Mission to Albanian and Romanian component parts of the transnational World Heritage Property ‘Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and other Regions of Europe’“ was made available to the public.
The mission, visiting Domogled-Valea Cernei and Cheile Nerei-Besnita National Parks/UNESCO properties, took place in November 2019.

However, the report was only just made publicly accessible. It is not clear what the reasons for this massive delay are. Could it be that the critical conclusions of the UNESCO/IUCN experts with regard to the intensive logging operations in the buffer zones of Romanian UNESCO component parts caused controversy?

The document states: “The mission concludes that the current management of the component parts’ buffer zones does not meet the requirements of the Operational Guidelines (OG) in a satisfactory way and may have negative effects on the integrity of the transboundary property. The current forest management should seek to better support the natural processes and be based on strengthening and expanding ancient and primeval beech forest ecosystems over time.“

UNESCO and IUCN also urge Romania to “strictly protect all ancient and primeval beech forest ecosystems that have not been included in the property, in order to foster the long-term preservation of those exceptional ecosystems; priority should be given to those located in proximity of the components visited by the mission, to enhance connectivity.“

This mission was triggered by numerous media reports and formal complaints from EuroNatur Foundation, Agent Green and many other conservationists concerning destructive logging of old growth and primary forests in UNESCO buffer zones, even in close vicinity to the UNESCO core protected areas. Commercial wood exploitation authorized by the Romanian state in the buffer areas affects biodiversity rich and mature forests with an equal “universal value” to the beech forests included in the UNESCO site (core area).

The joint UNESCO/IUCN Mission in 2019 was preceded by an informal IUCN Europe field visit in November 2018, where intensive logging operations in highly valuable old growth beech forests in Domogled-Valea Cernei and Semenic National Parks/UNESCO site component parts, including in buffer zones, were confirmed.

On top of the EU infringement proceedings against the Romanian state (launched by the European Commission in February 2020 due to deterioration of EU protected areas by logging), the clear findings of UNESCO and the IUCN are just another indicator that protection of high biodiversity value forests in Romania is in a catastrophically bad state.

The intensive logging operations in the Romanian World Heritage buffer areas ultimately endanger the existence of the entire transnational World Heritage site for the protection of the European primeval and ancient beech forests, which consists of 67 component parts in 12 countries …

EuroNatur Foundation and environmental organisation Agent Green interpret the findings of the report as “crystal clear evidence” that Romanian state forestry enterprise, Romsilva – the agency in charge of both logging in Romania and management of almost all Romanian national and nature parks – is “not capable” of managing protected areas for conservation of highly valuable ecosystems appropriately. The long record of controversies and the poor state of many protected areas under custody of Romsilva shows that the company is “obviously driven by commercial interests and fundamentally lacks ambition and expertise regarding nature conservation”.

Therefore, Romsilva needs to be immediately removed from all duties for protected area management. Management of Romania’s protected areas should be taken over by official national bodies (such as National Agency for Protected Areas) and equipped with adequate funding to ensure conservation objectives are met. Logging in buffer zones on state property needs to be halted until new management plans  in line with UNESCO/IUCN guidelines are developed. Management plans of all UNESCO World Natural Heritage properties, as well as national parks need to be revised following the recommendations by the UNESCO/IUCN report.

“The World is celebrating the International Day of the Forests on March 21. Romania’s outstanding natural forest heritage is one of the most valuable ecological treasures of Europe. Romania must act accordingly and stop logging primary and old growth forests. And the EU needs support Romania with adequate means for compensation of private land owners,” EuroNatur and Agent Green conclude.

In detail, the final report by World Heritage Centre and IUCN concludes with the following recommendations:

    • Define a forest management regime specific to the buffer zones that would be in keeping with the aim to ensure consistency and coordination across all buffer zones within the property, and that would promote the natural and unimpeded, progressive aging of the beech forest ecosystems present in the buffer zones. This regime should ensure an ecological transition between the component parts and the surrounding forest ecosystems of high ecological value, including those located in the buffer zones and, in case of Romania, the virgin and quasi-virgin forests listed in the ‘National Catalogue of Virgin Forests’.
    • This regime should prioritize natural processes and be based on ‘pro-forestation’ efforts and clear guidelines on appropriate intervention activities and limits, in the sense of Decision 43 COM 7B.13 of the World Heritage Committee (remark: “ensure appropriate buffer zone management in order to support undisturbed natural processes”)
    • It could include the establishment of a functional network of ‘aging’ and ‘senescence’ patches of forest, in the buffer zones, aiming to contribute to strengthening and extending the ancient and primeval beech forest ecosystems, and supporting the natural processes leading to their conservation and naturalness over time:
      • “pro-forestation” efforts should be interpreted as all forest management activities seeking to promote natural tree reproduction and development;
      • “aging patches”should be interpreted as forest areas managed in such a way as leaving the trees growing beyond their usual rotation age, up to twice this duration (200-240 years in case of Romania);
      • “senescence patches” should be interpreted as forest areas deliberately abandoned to a spontaneous evolution of natural processes, until the complete collapse of the trees and resumption of the silvigenetic cycle (forest cycle);

UNESCO/IUCN also call on the Romanian State Party, to “combat and prosecute any illegal logging activities in the two national parks“, “abandon plans to upgrade the national road 66A, due to the potential impact of this project on the property’s integrity” and “inform the World heritage Centre of any proposal to extend or upgrade hydropower facilities within the property’s components and their buffer zones, before any decision is taken“.

Logging of ancient beech (300-400 years) in the buffer zone of Domogled – Valea Cernei UNESCO component part (Iauna Craiova)
Informal IUCN field mission (2018) into forest wilderness of Domogled National Park / UNESCO World Heritage (buffer zone).
Cemetery of old growth beech trees in the middle of Domogled National Park / UNESCO World Heritage buffer zone.
No proper protection: Pristine wilderness of Cernisoara forest wilderness in the middle of Domogled National Park / UNESCO World Heritage buffer zone.

500+ scientists tell world leaders: Stop treating burning of biomass as carbon neutral

Letter Regarding Use of Forests for Bioenergy (February 11, 2021)

To President Biden, President von der Leyen, President Michel, Prime Minister Suga, and President Moon,

The undersigned scientists and economists commend each of you for the ambitious goals you have announced for the United States, the European Union, Japan and South Korea to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Forest preservation and restoration should be key tools for achieving this goal and simultaneously helping to address our global biodiversity crisis. We urge you not to undermine both climate goals and the world’s biodiversity by shifting from burning fossil fuels to burning trees to generate energy.

For decades, producers of paper and timber products have generated electricity and heat as by- products from their process wastes. This use does not lead to the additional harvest of wood. In recent years, however, there has been a misguided move to cut down whole trees or to divert large portions of stem wood for bioenergy, releasing carbon that would otherwise stay locked up in forests.

The result of this additional wood harvest is a large initial increase in carbon emissions, creating a “carbon debt,” which increases over time as more trees are harvested for continuing bioenergy use. Regrowing trees and displacement of fossil fuels may eventually pay off this carbon debt, but regrowth takes time the world does not have to solve climate change. As numerous studies have shown, this burning of wood will increase warming for decades to centuries. That is true even when the wood replaces coal, oil or natural gas.

The reasons are fundamental. Forests store carbon – approximately half the weight of dry wood is carbon. When wood is harvested and burned, much and often more than half of the live wood in trees harvested is typically lost in harvesting and processing before it can supply energy, adding carbon to the atmosphere without replacing fossil fuels. Burning wood is also carbon-inefficient, so the wood burned for energy emits more carbon up smokestacks than using fossil fuels. Overall, for each kilowatt hour of heat or electricity produced, using wood initially is likely to add two to three times as much carbon to the air as using fossil fuels.

Increases in global warming for the next few decades are dangerous. This warming means more immediate damages through more forest fires, sea level rise and periods of extreme heat in the next decades. It also means more permanent damages due to more rapid melting of glaciers and thawing of permafrost, and more packing of heat and acidity into the world’s oceans. These harms will not be undone even if we remove the carbon decades from now.

Government subsidies for burning wood create a double climate problem because this false solution is replacing real carbon reductions. Companies are shifting fossil energy use to wood, which increases warming, as a substitute for shifting to solar and wind, which would truly decrease warming.

In some places, including Japan and French Guiana, there are proposals not just to burn wood for electricity but to burn palm or soybean oil. Producing these fuels requires expansion of palm or soybean production that leads to clearing of carbon dense tropical forests and reduction of their important carbon sink, both of which add carbon to the atmosphere.

“Sustainability standards” for forest or vegetable oil management cannot alter these results. Sustainable management is what allows wood harvest to eventually pay back carbon debts but cannot alter these decades or even centuries of increased warming. Similarly, any increased demand for vegetable oil adds to the global pressure to clear more forests already created by rising food demands.

Making countries responsible for emissions from land use changes, although desirable, cannot alone fix laws that treat burning wood as carbon neutral because these national responsibilities do not alter the incentives created by those laws for power plants and factories to burn wood. In the same way, the fact that countries are responsible for emissions from diesel fuel use would not fix a law encouraging trucks to burn more diesel on the flawed theory that diesel is carbon neutral. Both treaties that shape national climate responsibilities and each country’s energy laws that implement them must accurately recognize the climate effects of the activities they encourage.

Your decisions going forward are of great consequences for the world’s forests because if the world supplied just an additional 2% of its energy from wood, it would need to double its commercial wood harvests. There is good evidence that increased bioenergy in Europe has already led to greatly increased forest harvests there. These approaches also create a model that encourages tropical countries to cut more of their forests – as several countries have pledged to do – undermining the goals of globally accepted forest agreements.

To avoid these harms, governments must end subsidies and other incentives that today exist for the burning of wood whether from their forests or others. The European Union needs to stop treating the burning of biomass as carbon neutral in its renewable energy standards and in its emissions trading system. Japan needs to stop subsidizing power plants to burn wood. And the United States needs to avoid treating biomass as carbon neutral or low carbon as the new administration crafts climate rules and creates incentives to reduce global warming.

Trees are more valuable alive than dead both for climate and for biodiversity. To meet future net zero emission goals, your governments should work to preserve and restore forests and not to burn them.

Peter Raven, Director Emeritus Missouri Botanical Society, St. Louis, Missouri USA, Winner U.S. National Medal of Science,
former President of American Association for Advancement of Science

PDF version of the letter including the list of all initiators

Original letter (Dropbox)

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