Tag Archives: primeval

Romania’s National Parks Deliberately Destroyed by State Forestry Managers

September 20, 2018, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Investigative video footage reveals scandalous logging in Romania’s Cheile Nerei-Beusnita National Park

New video evidence published today by environmental NGOs Agent Green and EuroNatur Foundation clearly demonstrates that forest destruction in Romania’s Cheile Nerei-Beusnita National Park is comprehensively out of control. Logging of old growth forests is being deliberately driven by state forest enterprise Romsilva. At least 60 percent of the national park is being treated like a logging site, not as a protected area. Agent Green and EuroNatur Foundation call on the Romanian Ministry for Environment to immediately stop commercial logging in national parks and to dismiss Romsilva from managing protected areas.

Agent Green investigator and journalist Andrei Ciurcanu witnessed the scandalous logging in old forests, destruction of protected travertine-rock sites, inexcusable incompetence and ignorance of nature conservation responsibilities by national park staff, and pressure being applied from state foresters on national park managers and scientists in order to increase logging in the national park.

OUT OF CONTROL #ep3 Cheile-Nerei National Park from AGENT GREEN on Vimeo.

Romania hosts an estimated two thirds of the EU’s remaining primary forests. But huge tracts of logging are continuously destroying this important sanctuary of European natural heritage, even in national parks and EU Natura 2000 protection sites. Romania has been systematically ignoring international obligations like IUCN standards and many thousands of hectares of supposedly protected forests have been destroyed in the last 10 to 15 years. Today, large areas of national parks look like badly managed logging sites.

The major driver of this disaster for nature is apparantly Romania’s state forests enterprise Romsilva, which manages 12 of 13 national parks. All of them suffer from heavy logging pressure. It is clear that the Romanian Government turns a blind eye and tolerates enormous levels of commercial logging on more than 50% of the national park surface.

In the investigative video, the former national park director Stefan Dascalu admits that strong pressure was applied from the state forests administration to increase logging in the so called national park “buffer zones”. The planned strictly protected zone of the park was downsized to only 39 percent due to pressure from Romsilva in order to boost logging areas and volumes. Logging operations with large logs and heavy machines even damaged rare travertine formations, which are under protection by EU legislation. When confronted with the evidence, Romsilva foresters pretended to be badly informed and blamed the national park administration: “We do not know what is protected. It is not our job”, they said. The current national park director physically ran away from the investigation team and information requests regarding logging volumes were not answered.

“Logging in Romania’s national parks spreads like cancer. This scandal is out of control. The Government is doing nothing to protect our natural heritage. It is a national shame that Romania continues to destroy some of Europe’s most precious natural heritage“, Gabriel Paun, President of Agent Green said.

“The logging drama in Romania is currently the most pressing nature crisis in Europe, but still largely unseen. The EU Commission has to become immediately active and involved in order to stop the destruction. After the terrible forest fires in many areas of Europe this summer, the proper protection of our last intact natural forests has become even more important“, Gabriel Schwaderer, CEO from EuroNatur Foundation stated.

On April 26 Agent Green handed over 76,120 signatures from Romanian citizens to Environmental Minister and Vice Prime Minister Gratiela Gavrilescu, demanding an immediate logging ban in national parks. Unfortunately no action has taken place.

Agent Green and EuroNatur urge the Romanian Environmental Minister to immediately stop commercial logging in national parks, dismiss Romsilva from managing national parks and other protected areas, implement modern and nature conservation oriented management systems, provide adequate funds to properly manage protected areas and to compensate private land owners in protected areas for nature conservation objectives.

The campaign initiative „Out of control“ exposes the environmental disaster that is the logging and loss of irreplaceable old growth forests in Romania’s national parks. Three new episodes showing the ongoing logging in primeval and old growth forests in Romania’s national parks will be published in the weeks to come.

Here you can view the previous “Out of Control” episodes about the alarming devastation of Romania’s Domogled – Valea Cernei and Semenic – Cheile Carasului national parks.

Protest action by Agent Green in Romania’s wounded Domogled national park

 

Romania: How Log Yards Hide the Destruction of Europe’s Ancient Forests

July 17, 2018, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
EIA report takes a closer look behind Romania’s forest industry
EuroNatur and Agent Green call for logging ban in all Romanian national parks

The new EIA report Behind the Scenes takes a detailed look at how the Austrian timber companies Holzindustrie Schweighofer, Kronospan and Egger continue to fuel the destruction of Europe’s last old growth forests. Holzindustrie Schweighofer pledged five years ago not to source timber from national parks or protected areas. The report shows how log yards hide the destruction of Europe’s last primeval and old growth forests in Romania…

EIA used Romania’s public timber tracking website, Forest Inspector, to study the sourcing operations of several Schweighofer suppliers as they cut wood in two national parks in Romania’s Carpathian Mountains. EIA visited these sites and documented large-scale, sometimes illegal, commercial logging in both the Rodna Mountains and Calimani National Parks.

According to data compiled by EIA, companies that supply Schweighofer have harvested at least 35,000 cubic meters from these two parks in an 18-month time period through June 2018. On-the-ground research tracked logs from these parks to local wood depots that supply Schweighofer. Schweighofer’s extensive sourcing from third-party log yards – approximately 45% of its Romanian log purchases – exposes the company to wood from national parks, as well as to illegal logging and other unsustainable practices.

EIA also found that other large multinational companies in Romania, like Kronospan and Egger, have similar sourcing issues. EIP points out, that the lack of real traceability to the forest origin by all these companies, in a country like Romania with an elevated risk of corruption, means that their purchases fuel the illegal and unsustainable logging that continues to erode Romania’s rich biodiversity and the economic future of its timber processing industry.

Romania’s Carpathian Mountains contain the majority of the remaining old growth forests in Europe. EIA: All foreign companies operating in Romania have a responsibility to enact real traceability for their wood purchases and to stop abetting the destruction of Europe’s last great forests.

NGOs EuroNatur Foundation and Agent Green are calling on the Romanian government to completely ban logging in all national parks and to improve implementation of its primeval forests protection programme. Only this would give the guarantee that destruction of Europe’s last large primeval forests is stopped. In all Romanian national parks large scale, industrial exploitation of wood is omnipresent. Almost half of the park’s surface is designated as “buffer zones”, which actually means: no protection. Both by the government and Romanian state forestry Romsilva, who are running 12 of 13 national parks, are continuously granting logging permissions in all national parks.
 
Also old growth forests are being logged with official approvals. According to the world nature conservation organisation IUCN the primary objectives of national parks are nature conservation, science, recreation and education. Thus the vast logging operations in Romania’s parks violate international standards. „Europe’s biggest nature crises in Romania will intensify if the Romanian government continues to ignore nature protection objectves and to primarily serve the interests of the logging industry,“ says Gabriel Schwaderer, executive director of EuroNatur Foundation.
 
Agent Green is filing harsh critique about the ongoing  delay of the full operation of the online timber tracking website “Forest Inspector”. All the planned expanded functions of the portal have been realized, but the Ministry of Waters and Forests has repeatedly delayed its full operation. The fact that the portal still runs with limited functions  allows the continuous degradation of forests, Gabriel Paun, President of Agent Green says.
 
“No promise and no commitment can be respected as long as the issue of log yards is not solved by expanding the functions of the forest inspector system by creating a real-time electronic register accessible to the public. The timber robbery has even scuffed the forests of national parks. Not even this 1% of the country’s surface that should have remained intact, is in proper shape” added Paun.
 
Protest action by Agent Green and EuroNatur in Romania’s wounded Domogled national park (May 2018)

Forest destruction in Romania: EU-Fact-Finding Mission und Anti-Mafia-Raid

May 30, 2018, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
National Park Director from State Forestry Romsilva: “The forest itself wants to be cut down”

In the early morning of May 30, 2018, officials of the Romanian anti-mafia prosecution office DIICOT began a large-scale investigation against illegal practices in the wood industry in Romania. The DIICOT press release announces: “Public prosecutors of the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism have together with police officers within the Public Order Department and the Department of Economic Crime conducted 23 house searches in five districts of the country and in Bucharest.” The press release speaks of a “destructive action by an organized criminal group” specializing in offenses of misappropriation of public wood and also auctions, tax evasion, unfair competition, deforestation and other offenses. “

There is a “reasonable suspicion” that since 2011, several individuals have formed an organized criminal group whose members are abusing public auctions organized at the level of forestry departments in order to procure significant additional quantities of wood for processing in sawmills. Furthermore, there is reasonable suspicion that some of the processed wood comes from illegal wood sources. The estimated damage amounts to more than 25 million euros, according to DIICOT. The members of the organized criminal group also benefited from the support of some officials. A number of people will be brought to the DIICOT headquarters for questioning. In the operation special units of the gendarmerie brigade “Vlad Tepes” (the civil name of “Count Dracula”) are also involved.

“The forest itself wants to be cut down”…

Primeval forest demand itself to be cut. Really? from AGENT GREEN on Vimeo.

EU Fact Finding mission and protest action in Domogled National Park

The investigation action by Romanian anti-mafia prosecutors took place four days after a publicly-acknowledged Fact Finding mission by MEP Thomas Waitz and a protest by activists from Agent Green in Domogled National Park (26 May 2018) which hosts large areas of primeval and old growth beech forest that has been affected heavily by aggressive logging. The ongoing destruction of high conservation forest stands in this national park is just one  example for the wide spread malfunction of official nature conservation in Romania.

The visit of Thomas Waitz and representatives of EuroNatur and Agent Green revealed dramatic forest destruction in the heart of the national park: cutting of ancient beech forests, oversized and erosion-promoting forest roads or soil devastation by tractor paths on steep slopes.

National Park Director Ioan Gaspar gave the remarkable statement in front of the camera on Saturday, May 26: “The forest itself wants to be cut down”. Romsilva manager Dragos Mihai, who is in charge of 12 out of 13 Romanian national parks, claimed on the spot – unswervingly of obvious deforestation – that there is no logging in old-growth forests in the national park. He also denied that the Romanian national parks are corresponding to the international standards of the world nature conservation organization IUCN and insisted that deforestation in the so-called buffer zone of the park was legal.

However, according to the IUCN rules, at least 75% of a national park must be strictly protected. Furthermore, the Romanian National Park Law (O.U.G. 57/2007) defines that the national parks must comply with the IUCN category II, which gives priority to protection of ecosystems and recreation. The National Park Administration is therefore required by law to exclude “any form of exploitation of natural resources and land use” that is incompatible with conservation objectives.

“A Romsilva manager admitted in conversation at the site that half of the national park is de facto no longer a national park because of loggin,,” the environmentalist and journalist Matthias Schickhofer reports, who participated in the mission for the EuroNatur Foundation. “All the state foresters and national park employees present have hardly lost a sentence on the protection of ecosystems during the entire visit. Obviously, they are only concerned about the highest possible revenue from the use of wood. But logging in national parks is in severe conflict with existing laws. The forest destruction in Domogled National Park is only the tip of the iceberg: The large-scale action of the special authorities against criminal structures in Romanian timber industry proves that there is a systemic problem. Romania urgently needs a fundamental turnaround in the forest industry“.

Logging in old beech forests in Cernisoara-area at the heart of Domogled national park.
Intact primeval beech forest in Radoteasa valley, Cernisoara forest district in Domogled national park. According to a Romsilva manager an “expert” confirmed that this is not old growth forest…
Pathless wildnes in Radoteasa valley, Cernisoara area: Romsilva apparently wants to log this forest although it is located in the middle of the national park. However, the Director of Nature Conservation of Romsilva said, that this area could be incorporated potentially into the striclty protected core zone of the national park…
Sustainable forestry? No, former old growth forest in Domogled national park.
Oversized forest road in the old beech forest in the heart of the Domogled National Park. Here, apparently whole old trees were teared down into the valley …
MEP Thomas Waitz, organic farmer and forest owner from Austria, counts the annual rings of an ancient beech tree near the UNESCO World Heritage Site “Iauna Craiova” in the Domogled National Park. A new UNESCO World Heritage program has been set up in 2017 protecting the last European beech forests. In the list are, among others, also some stands in Romania. Nevertheless, in the Domogled National Park old growth beech forests are beeing logged that border the UNESCO area and that are largely identical to forests in the UNESCO protected area…
UNESCO beech forest reserve Iauna Craiova in Domogled National Park. The logged national park areas outside the reserve have likely once looked like this.