The Federation of Forests and Pastures Owners is protesting on Monday in front of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADR) in order to draw attention to the proposal for derisory financing of the forestry sector in the 2023-2027 National Strategic Plan (PNS), financing reduced to 0.6% of the total funding through the National Strategic Plan.
"Through this protest, we remind the authorities that Romania is under infringement procedure for not respecting its obligations in what regards the Natura 2000 network [case number is INFR(2020)2023]. On February 12, 2020, the European Commission sent a letter of formal notice to Romania, and later, on July 2, 2020, the European Commission has requested Romania again take the necessary measures to protect and to manage its Natura 2000 networks, insistently urging that Romania combat the illegal logging and better protect the forests in Natura 2000 sites on its territory," mentions a release of the Federation.
Following the needs analysis for the forest sector, document sent to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development by the organizations of the forest sector, showed that 30% of Romania's forests have a very reduced degree of accessibility due to the lack of forest roads. In these areas, wood rots in forests and very few wood tending operations are carried out, the Federation's representatives claim.
Romania has a national specific through the dependency of 3.5 million homes on the firewood resource, which creates an increased resource need and a deficit on the market, and combating illegal felling cannot be done without legal assurance of the necessary resource, which cannot be obtained without investments in making the forest fund accessible and in exploitation technologies with reduced impact on the environment.
Furthermore, Romania has a unique patrimony of biodiversity, and protection of this patrimony cannot be transferred through restrictions towards forest owners, without sustained commitments through mandatory compensatory measures in national and European legislation.
"Romania has over 500,000 hectares of wooded pastures. It's absurd to spend 11,000 euro/ha through the PNRR [the National Recovery and Resilience Plan] in order to create a hectare of forest from plantations and concomitantly through the National Strategic Plan to pay subsidies for farmers in order to clear pastures of forest vegetation that has appeared naturally. Supporting the forest-pastoral systems is a measure that is required according to any economic or environment logic," shows the release.
The measures identified and proposed for financing under the National Strategic Plan, as part of the consultative process ran by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, include: support for forest-pastoral systems in land management, for the inclusion in a durable management regime the 500,000 hectares of forested pastures; measures to support the implementation of the network of protected areas Natura 2000; measures to invest in making the forest fund accessible and technologies to exploit in an environmentally-friendly manner; voluntary commitments to support the climate impact and for the preservation of biodiversity; measures to support the resilience of forests to climate change, through conducting tending operations and restoring the arboretum damaged by calamities.
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