Tag Archives: forests

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. 

EuroNatur: New EU Forest Strategy must promote biodiversity and ecosystem functions – not intensified logging

The world is facing an interconnected climate and ecosystem crisis. Natural forests play a crucial role for both climate change mitigation and preservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Therefore, they must  be better protected and the biological diversity of forests restored – also in Europe. EuroNatur Foundation submitted the following feedback to the EU Commission’s Roadmap for a new forest strategy:

Europe’s forests have been affected by climate crisis born drought, storms, wild fires and insect calamities in the past years. These impacts of climate heating now combine with the failures of past forest management, which is primarily based on maximized exploitation of wood resources resulting in large scale clear-cutting, even aged wood plantations (often comprised of one or two fast growing trees species), harvesting with high-impact heavy machinery, drainage of swampy stands and/or the complete removal of critically important old and dead trees.

The latest “State of Nature” report paints a bleak picture of Europe’s forests. Only 15% of forests in the Natura 2000 network are in a favourable status. Less than a third of forests are of uneven aged and 30% are monocultures with only one tree species. Only 5% have five or more tree species. The increase of exploitation, especially for energy production, leads to a further loss of threatened species due to clear-cutting and destruction of habitats, including the loss of dead wood and old trees and reduces the potential for carbon sequestration.

At the same time, the rather small remains of intact natural forests are shrinking, especially in the Carpathians and in Scandinavia.

Forests play a multifunctional role for life on earth and for human society. Therefore, the Forest Strategy needs to go beyond the promotion of the traditional wood extraction-based economy and shift its focus to better consider promoting ecological functions and sustainable flows of goods and services.

In contrast to other regions of the world that are mainly oriented towards aggressive wood extraction and overuse, Europe has a tradition of sustainable forest management when it comes to reforestation and forest planning.

However, sustainable forest management is more than growing at least as many trees as harvested before and needs to ensure durable ecological functioning of forest ecosystems as a key priority. Even-aged monocultures or clearcutting methods cannot not be considered as “sustainable” from an ecological point of view and need to be prohibited in times of emerging climate and nature crisis.

These counterproductive management practices should not be repeated with future efforts regarding afforestation and tree planting, which should be governed by clear and strict ecological criteria. Natural regeneration needs to be considered wherever possible including allowing development of pioneer forests.

We appreciate that the EU Forest Strategy will “foresee measures to avoid or correct unsustainable practices” and seek the “right balance and synergies” between ecological functions and socio-economic interests related to forests.

It is important, that the new Forest Strategy is kept consistent and mutually supports the Biodiversity Strategy and the Green Deal and is not turned into a “Forestry Strategy” driven forward by economic interests.

We support the improvement of “forest protection and restoration to meet the EU biodiversity and climate objectives, and de-crease the loss of forest coverage, while strictly protecting all remaining EU primary and old-growth forests”.

The key formula for the future of Europe’s forests should be: Preserve all biodiversity rich, resilient, close to nature forests – including all remaining old-growth and primary forests – and manage the production forests in a way to enrich biodiversity, maintain and strengthen ecosystem services and improve climate stability. 

Strict protection of all remaining primary and old-growth forests in the EU is crucial, also because of their important ecosystem services and their genetic pools for the re-forestation of collapsed wood plantations.

We are convinced that the EU Forest Strategy must go beyond the focus on protection of “old-growth forests” and also consider preserving previously “managed” close-to-nature forests with closed canopy, intact interior micro climate and healthy tree diversity. This is key in particular when it comes to beech and other mixed deciduous forests where a well shaded and cool interior is crucial to keep forests healthy and resilient in the face of climate crisis challenges with increased heat and extended periods of drought.

These kinds of forests could be considered under the title “climate and ecosystem protection forests” and should be either preserved without management or managed in a very cautious and close to nature way (following continuous cover forestry methods or similar to close to nature forest management principles as defined by German “Naturland” certification system), giving priority to the restoring biodiversity, durable functioning of ecological services and their role as important carbon sinks.

Owners, especially private owners of these “climate protection and ecosystem services forests” deserve fair compensation payments.

Furthermore, the habitat and species protection obligations from the Natura 2000 regime need to be respected and better enforced in the forestry sector. In numerous Natura 2000 sites (SCI, SAC, SPA) all over the EU, but in particular in countries such as Romania and Slovakia, valuable and biodiversity rich forest habitats (including old growth and primary forests) are being destroyed or significantly deteriorated by logging – either by clear cutting or by stepwise removal of entire mature stands by shelterwood cuttings. Often, appropriate assessments are not being pursued at all or done with very poor quality and lacking a scientific basement.

Without better enforcement of Natura 2000 legislation in the forest sector and strengthening the conservation aspects of Habitats and Birds directives, the EU Biodiversity Strategy will be severely undermined.

We appreciate development of new products that replace the intensive fossil-based materials and effectively contribute to a TRULY new climate neutral society, but we object any fostering of systems that lead to increased logging of intact forests and more carbon emissions from burning of wood for energy purposes.

The expansion of the wood biomass demand for energy production is a major driver of logging in intact, natural forests in the EU. Forest biomass burning is NOT climate neutral in the short to medium term (the carbon debt can last for centuries), and certainly not at scale by 2050. Emissions from burning wood are seen by the atmosphere just like emissions from fossil fuels. They are real and thus need to be considered as such on the emissions side of the greenhouse gas accounts. The decline in the EU forest sink is a shocking consequence of the increased use of forest biomass as a “renewable” energy source. Forest biomass should not be considered a “renewable” source like solar and wind and should not be eligible for subsidies.

Afforestation and tree planting can contribute to CO2 capture and sequestration, but such efforts must not open doors for a new wave of non-natural tree plantations with low biodiversity value or lead to a revival of monocultures but need to follow strict ecological criteria with clear biodiversity outcomes.

To date, most nature conservation efforts, fostering ecosystem service provision, have come from the public forest estate. Private forest owners have been largely absent in this debate and have mainly reflected their interest in developing timber based economy or even acted in opposition to the promotion of the common good aspects of the forest sector. In the future, private forest owners will have to be more actively engaged in the critical climate and biodiversity functions that forests must play, as they manage a large part of the forest area in Europe.

These solutions should strive to integrate timber production with a wider range of ecosystem services, beyond the classical wood based economy, including public-private partnerships and payment schemes for sustainable supply of ecosystem functions.

Natural forests not only safeguard biological diversity, but also offer important ecosystem functions such as the storage and supply of fresh water

Groundbreaking supreme court ruling for the protection of Romanian natural forests

Bucharest Court of Appeal decides on full public access to forest management plans; EU Commission calls for full transfer of the Natura 2000 directives into Romanian national law.

Forest management plans contain environmentally relevant information and must therefore be publicly accessible. The Court of Appeal in Bucharest has now also adopted this legal opinion. The NGO Agent Green has filed more than 100 lawsuits against forest owners and authorities in the past year to get public access to forest management plans in order to enforce the EU directive on public access to environmental information, the Aarhus Convention and the EU Nature directives in connection with the protection of ecologically valuable forests. The Court of Appeal in Bucharest has now handed down an important decision: The public has the right to access environmental information in forest management plans.

For a long time, Romanian authorities and Romsilva, Romania’s state forest administration, have kept environmentally relevant information in forest management plans secret  – contrary to the provisions of the Aarhus Convention and the EU Environmental Information Directive. Agent Green has therefore had to seek access to relevant information in numerous legal proceedings. The court of appeal in Bucharest has now found Agent Green is correct and dismissed an appeal lodged by the Ministry of the Environment. With immediate effect, the ministry is therefore obliged to make environmentally relevant information from forest management plans available to the public on request. This means that civil society can finally access information, including: the volume of wood that exists in the forest, the species of trees, the average age of the trees, what kind of logging activity is planned and the volume of wood approved for cutting in the last 10 years. This is an important step to ensure public control of compliance with EU directives and thus the protection of ecologically valuable forests.

The decision also sends a strong signal to the rest of the EU, because forest management plans are kept secret almost everywhere. The issue of inadequate access to environmental information is also essential with regard to the EU infringement proceedings against the government in Bucharest. The EU Commission could soon escalate the infringement proceedings to the Court of Justice of the EU.

At the same time, the pressure from Brussels on the Romanian government is  growing. In its latest publication on infringement proceedings, the European Commission calls on Romania to fully ensure the conservation of the country’s natural habitats and the protection of wild animals and plants in accordance with the requirements of the EU Nature Directives. The EU Commission complains that the forest management plans often do not take Natura 2000 provisions into account. The nature conservationist witnesses of Agent Green have repeatedly documented illegal logging, in particular in designated Natura 2000 sites. Romania now has two months to remedy this situation, otherwise the EU Commission threatens to issue a reasoned opinion, which could lead to legal proceedings at the Court of Justice of the EU – and potentially a harsh sentence afterwards.

Devastation of a (formerly) pristine side valley in the Domogled – Valea Cernei National Park / Natura 2000 area.