Außer Kontrolle
Urwaldzerstörung in Europa
Rumänien beherbergt noch große Ur- und Naturwälder. Aber sie werden brutal abgeholzt. Sogar in Nationalparks und Natura 2000 Gebieten. Die Regierung muss endlich handeln.
Ein Waldmeer bis zum Horizont...
Europas einzigartiges Naturerbe
Nirgendwo sonst in der gemäßigten Klimazone in Europa haben so viele Ur- und Naturwälder überlebt wie in Rumänien. Doch sie werden zerstört. Jeden Tag. Unsere Video-Doku's zeigen das Ausmaß der brutalen Zerstörung...
ZU DEN VIDEOS!In das wilde Boia Mica-Tal führt kein Weg ...
Europas wildestes Gebirgstal...
Obwohl im Natura 2000 Gebiet Fagaras-Gebirge gelegen, war der Schutzstatus dieses Naturjuwels heftig umstritten. Die Erhaltung dieser einmaligen Wildnis und Naturtourismus werden der lokalen Wirtschaft weit mehr nutzen als die (unwiederbringliche) Abholzung der Urwälder ...
WeiterlesenEuropa's größtes Naturschutzdrama.
Europäisches Naturerbe im Sterben
Rumänien beherbergt den größten Urwaldschatz der EU. Doch der wird unter den Augen von Regierung und Behörden geplündert. In rasender Geschwindigkeit. Der Hut brennt!
WeiterlesenNera-Urwald: 6000 Jahre alt, 5000 Hektar groß.
Der größte Rotbuchen-Urwald der EU
Ein Fenster in die Urzeit Europas: So hat das natürliche Mitteleuropa einmal ausgehen. Urwälder sind von unschätzbarem Wert für die Wissenschaft.
WeiterlesenMonster-Kahlschläge im Europaschutzgebiet.
Ökologischer Notstand
Angeblich war es wegen dem Borkenkäfer. 2013 donnerten die Holztrucks ohne Pause ins Tal. Jetzt ist der ganze Bergrücken nackt - fast 100 Hektar Kahlschlag. Bahn frei für Erosion, Fluten und Muren...
WeiterlesenMotorsägen und Traktoren im Anmarsch.
Akut bedrohtes Paradies
Unberührter Buchen-Tannen-Wald im Natura 2000-Gebiet Fagaras-Gebirge: Im benachbarten Sinca-Tal wurde ein UNESCO-Weltnaturerbe-Gebiet eingerichtet. Im Stramba-Tal (Bild) wird ökologisch gleichwertiger Urwald aber abgeholzt ...
Aktiv werden!Weltklasse Wildnis
UNESCO-Weltnaturerbe Buchenurwald.
Rotbuchen-Urwälder gibt es nur in Europa. Vor 5000 Jahren war Europa das Reich der Buche. Eine UNESCO Weltnaturerbestätte bewahrt die letzten Reste. Der herrliche Iauna Craiova-Urwald im Domogled Nationalpark ist einer davon.
WeiterlesenWaldverwüstung im Nationalpark
Sag mir wo die Bäume sind.
Unweit des geplanten UNESCO-Weltnaturerbe-Gebiets im Iauna Craiova-Tal im Domogled - Valera Cernei Nationalpark ist vom Urwald so gut wie nichts mehr übrig: Bäume abgeholzt, Boden verwüstet. Diese Wunde wird erst in Jahrhunderten heilen.
Jetzt aktiv werden!Wie in einem Fantasyland
Europas wirklicher Märchenwald.
Von den unberührten Wäldern Europas ist fast nichts mehr übrig. Der Fichten-Urwald im rumänischen Sambata-Tal ist echter Paradieswald. Und er ist viel älter als sämtliche Märchen und Sagen...
WeiterlesenUnwiederbringliches Ur-Europa
Jahrtausendelang getestet und optimiert.
Europas Urwälder gedeihen kontinuierlich seit der letzten Eiszeit und werden von der Evolution laufend optimiert. Sie sind daher extrem stabil. Wenn man sie abholzt, dauert es viele Jahrhunderte, bis sie diesen Zustand wieder erreichen.
Jetzt aktiv werden!Endstation Sägewerk
Hackschnitzel statt Naturerbe?
Der Holzhunger internationaler Groß-Sägewerke und die Gier von Land- und Holzräubern hat die Waldzerstörung in Rumänien in den letzten 10-15 Jahren an die Spitze getrieben. Gesetze wurden missachtet, Verstöße kaum geahndet. Jetzt geht es um die letzten Urwaldflächen!
Jetzt aktiv werden!EU-Programm Natura 2000 missachtet
Europaschutzgebiete als Abholzungs-Hotspots.
Ein Holzernte-Traktor schleift einen Biotop-Baum aus dem Stramba-Urwald im Natura 2000-Gebiet Fagaras-Gebirge. Wie ist die großflächige Urwaldzerstörung mit EU-Schutzzielen vereinbar?
Jetzt aktiv werden!Rare Lebesformen
Ohne Wildnis verloren.
Der stark bedrohte und streng geschützte Eremit kann nur in Wäldern mit Altbäumen und Totholz überleben. Die letzten Urwälder sind Rettungsinseln für viele unserer natürlichen Mitbewohner. Werden die alten Wälder umgeschnitten, bedeutet das ihren Tod.
Jetzt aktiv werden!Luchs, Bär und Co.
Die Erde gehört auch ihnen.
Ohne wilde Wälder haben unsere prächtigen europäischen Mitbewohner keine Chance. Wollen wir ihnen wirklich auch noch die letzten Reste an Lebensraum stehlen?
Jetzt aktiv werden!Kohlenstoffspeicher
Klimaschützer Urwald.
In Bäumen und im Boden speichern Urwälder gewaltige Mengen Kohlendioxid. Durch Kahlschläge und Holz-Verbrennung wird das Gas freigesetzt. Urwälder taugen daher nicht als "Bioenergie". Vielmehr tragen sie selber massiv zum Klimaschutz bei.
Weiterlesen
Rampant illegal logging in Albania’s biggest national park is ravaging primeval woodland protected by UNESCO
In 2016, Albania imposed a 10-year moratorium on logging in all its forests and banned timber exports. The move followed decades of untrammelled exploitation that had denuded the country’s once-lush slopes and hastened erosion.
However, despite a total ban on logging and registration of parts of Albania’s biggest national park Shebenik-Jabllanice as a UNESCO world heritage site, criminal networks are ravaging its primeval forests to supply logs to the domestic firewood market, an investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, reveals.
According to Global Forest Watch the forest cover of Albania went down to 17 per cent of the country (2010). One of the biggest chunks of remaining woodland is in the Shebenik-Jabllanice National Park, which accounts for 70 per cent of Albania’s biodiversity, according to the Albanian Ecology Club conservation group.
Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) published a in depth feature story about the criminal operations in the national park and UNESCO world heritage site. You can read the full story here.
Agent Green published shocking data from second forest inventory, which has been kept secret so far. According to official logging allowances in forest management plans, not more than 18 Mio cubic meters of timber can be cut legally per year. But in reality more than 38 Mio cubic meters are being logged down, as the forest inventory shows. Every year. 20.6 Mio cubic meters / year of timber exploited above the maximum allowed is “a shocking value of catastrophic size and an attack on both safety of the citizens of Romania and on biodiversity. Authorities have totally lost control of sustainable forest management”, Agent Green says.
This enormous amount of illegal cutting is also an acute threat to the most precious
virgin forest heritage within the EU. If the level of logging is not being decreased immediately, many of these outstanding forests will be liquidated soon…
Open Letter on the National Forestry Inventory and the level of illegal logging: Agent Green calls Romania’s President and Prime Minister to take action…
To: The Presidential Administration and the Government of Romania To the attention of: Mr. Klaus Iohannis, President of Romania To: The Government of Romania To the attention of: Mrs. Viorica Dăncilă, Prime Minister of Romania
Toward: Mr. John Deneş, Minister of Waters and Forests Mr. Augustin Lazar, Prosecutor General, Public Ministry, PICCJ Victor Ciorbea, People’s Advocate Angela Cristea, Head of the Representation of the European Commission in Romania
Bucharest, November 28, 2018
Dear Mr. President, Madam Prime Minister,
Agent Green, an Environmental NGO, is concerned about the results of the second cycle of the National Forestry Inventory (IFN), designed to analyze the entire forest vegetation in Romania (the national forest fund and forest vegetation outside the national forest fund) results that without any justification were delayed to be made public.
The results of the 2nd IFN, regarding the total volume of wood that was extracted annualy in Romania, have not been published, but the information that Agent Green obtained shows that illegal cuts have not diminished in recent years, but have increased significantly compared to the results of the first cycle of IFN and shows that the size of illegal logging has reached enormous, unprecedented industrial values.
Central, regional and local authoritieshavetotally lost control of sustainable forest management.
According to Agent Green, the verifications made by specialists for the second IFN cycle, drawn up between 2013 and 2018, show that approximately 38.6 million cubic meters of wood were harvested annually.
Mr. President, according to the forest management plans, the maximum volume that can be harvested from Romania’s national forest fund is 18 million cubic meters per year. This means that an additional 20.6 million cubic meters per year have been illegally exploited, and not 0.4 million cubic meters as publicly announced by the Ministry of Waters and Forests less than a year ago.
For 4 full years of IFN cycle II (2014-2017), 82.4 million m3 of wood (20.6 per year) would have been illegally cut. This volume of wood represents the equivalent of 242,352 hectares of completely razed hectares. In other words, a forest area equivalent to nearly half of the whole Brasov County, disappeared during 2013-2018.
20.6 million cubic meters of timber exploited above the maximum allowance is a shocking value of catastrophic size and an attack on the safety of the citizens of Romania and an attack on biodiversity. These numbers show vulnerability of both the state institutions with the right to control and law enforcement and the wood industry (superior exploitation and processing), an industrial branch that participates in the construction of Romania’s GDP. But especially this value (considering that much of the 20.6 million “disappeared” from the national forest fund and not outside of it) questions the national security and the Romanians’ right to a clean environment.
Theselling of this illicit timber, on the black market without any documents , has caused immense damage, both financially and environmentally. A calculation, which took as reference the lowest price of 50 euros / cubic meter of firewood, Shows that the value of these illegal cuts is at least 4 billion euros in the last 4 years. This value is far from being the real one, as part of the extracted wood has been processed and sold at much higher prices in the country and abroad.
From the data obtained by Agent Green investigators, IFN results show that the most affected region of these cuts is Moldova (over 8 million cubic meters), followed by Transylvania (about 6 million), Muntenia (over 4.5 million cubic meters) and other 2.1 in the rest of the regions.
The specialists who talked with Agent Green investigators and who participated in the data processing explained that according to the type of property, the 20.6 million cubic meters above the maximum allowable volume, affected the private entities forests, followed by the Territorial Administrative Units (city councils), followed by Historical Associations (Obsti, Composesorate) and the public property fund managed by Romsilva National Forestry Company. According to our information, the last two “entities” were almost equal in IFN reports, a dramatic reality, as the state property administrator Romsilva has always reported downward figures on illegal cuts.
Mr President, Prime Minister, we are particularly worried about the results of the IFN, which must be made public as soon as possible for specialists to be able to analyze this catastrophic figure of 38.6 million cubic meters harvested annually. There are officials from state institutions who want these values to never be made available to citizens, or the figures to be modified so that the disaster in the forests of the country is diminished by reducing or re-interpreting these data.
The results of the second IFN cycle are even more dramatic because the first cycle results of the National Forest Inventory has highlighted that annual illegal exploitation in 2008-2012 was 8.8 million cubic meters, a value 234% lower than the results of the 2nd IFN cycle.
The current situation proves that both national legislation and European legislation (EUTR and FLEGT) have been flagrantly violated.
We consider that the lack of a long-term strategy of the Romanian state regarding the sustainable management of this renewable resource, the weakness of state institutions with the right to control and law enforcement, but especially the level of corruption in key institutions are the main reasons for this disasters and huge damages to Romania’s forests and biodiversity.
We are addressing your Excellencies and the Supreme Council of Defense hoping that the necessary steps will be taken to stop the scourge that has systematically covered the country’s forests.
That is why we ask you to take the official steps necessary for the forthcoming publication of the results of the National Forestry Inventory regarding the disappearance of tens of millions of cubic meters of wood.
We also ask you to support the launch of an investigation by the Romanian General Prosecutor’s Office, in order to identify and sanction those responsible for this catastrophe – representatives of the Romanian state who have allowed our country to come to this unprecedented situation and those who have actually participated in the destruction of the forest fund and forests outside it.
We also advocate for strengthened legislation to tighten up punishments, enforce the law on forestry compliance and develop a medium and long-term strategy for sustainable forest resource management at national level. A strategy that strikes a balance between social and environmental principles.
Agent Green embraces the Romanian Academy’s vision for sustainable forest management in Romania and considers it imperative that future strategic objectives and actions take into account:
adapting forest management to the impacts of climate change and natural hazards
increase the contribution of forests to the impacts of climate change and to different natural hazards
conserving biodiversity, aware of the truth that Romania is the owner of the most valuable natural forest patrimony in temperate Europe, including virgin and quasi-forest forests
compliance with the provisions of the forestry arrangements and limiting the volume of forest exploitation to the level of maximum 17 million cubic meters
emergency resolution of the major discordance between the present coverage of the country’s territory with forests (27%) and the optimal afforestation percentage (35-40%)
We urge the Ministry of Waters and Forests, the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture and Romsilva to start a large refforestation process at national level, in areas where illegal cuts have irreparably affected the environment and the quality of community life.
The development of the „Forest Inspector“ online system must be urgently unlocked. Functions that have been deleted or canceled must be reopened and active (exploring data older than 72 hours).
Control should also be extended to timber deposits, where the absence of an electronic register leads to the mixing of legal timber with the illegally exploited timber. The boundaries of all protected natural areas (Natura 2000 sites, national parks, nature reserves and natural monuments) should also be added.
We call for the development and operation of the SUMAL system, which is currently blocked at a rudimentary stage, the use of state-of-the-art technologies for the rapid calculation of wood volumes (scanners) and satellites that allow an analysis of the evolution of the forest fund.
We urgently call for the prohibition of forest exploitation in national parks (1,3% of the country’s surface) and the establishment of the new Ciucas, Făgăraş, Giumalău and Ţarcu national parks as a minimum concrete and applicable compensatory measure against illegally exploited forest areas.
We call for a restructuring of the entire forestry system in terms of establishing total forestry transparency, the way in which the traceability of the exploited timber is planned, approved, verified, exploited and ensured and the forestry employees are responsible protect and manage this resource irrespective of the type of property (state / private).
Romanian’s forests are not only a raw material resource for industry but, above all, they play an extremely important role in providing the environmental services that depend on the security and safety of the citizens of this country.
Mr. President, Prime Minister, Romania suffers the worst environmental crisis at European level, a situation that urgently requires your intervention and the CSAT.
With great esteem,
Chairman Agent Green
Gabriel Paun
Agent Green Investigation Director
Andrei Ciurcanu
Complicit in corruption: Earthsight report reveals supply chain is permeated with illegality from harvest to export, enabled through an epidemic of corruption …
An investigation released by Earthsight reveals how European consumers are contributing to an epidemic of corruption in Ukraine’s forests, in a trade worth over a billion Euros each year.
The findings are revealed in Complicit in Corruption, a report from the UK-based non-profit Earthsight, and are the culmination of two years of work, including field and undercover investigations. The report also points the finger at EU governments and some of the world’s largest multinational wood processing companies.
Earthsight underlines that Ukraine is home to some of the largest tracts of forest left on the continent, home to rare animals such as bears, wolves, lynx and bison. As well as threatening these forests, the report shows, the EU’s imports are undermining the efforts of Ukraine to establish the rule of law.
Former President Viktor Yanukovych is reckoned to have stolen more than $100 billion from the state during 2010-14, and the country continues to battle some of the highest levels of corruption in the world.
The wood imported from Ukraine is used in a vast array of products in Europe. “Your roof, your floor, your table, the newspaper you are holding, all might well be made from Ukrainian wood” said Sam Lawson, Earthsight’s Director. “And if it is, there is a good chance it was cut or traded illegally, abetted by high-level corruption”.
Complicit in Corruption reveals how illegality permeates the timber supply chain in Ukraine from harvest to export. Field investigations indicate that 40 per cent of the timber being produced by the country’s state-owned enterprises is illegally cut through the abuse of a loophole allowing trees to be harvested to prevent the spread of disease.
Court records unearthed by Earthsight also show that top forestry officials in Ukraine’s largest timber-producing provinces are the subject of major criminal investigations, involving systematic illegal logging and timber exports. A former national forest chief, Viktor Sivets, is on the run, accused of having received over €30 million in illegal kickbacks into Swiss bank accounts from overseas log buyers in exchange for access to cheap wood. The payments were routed through UK letterbox firms with owners registered in secrecy jurisdictions such as Panama. Earthsight uncovered evidence that such high-level corruption has continued under his successors. (Source: Earthsight)