The integrated information system for monitoring the traceability of wood materials (SUMAL) does not cope with the wave of illegalities that has befallen Romania's forests, not even 20 days after the entry into force of the Ordinance that caps the price of firewood at 400 RON / cubic meter, warns WWF Romania, in a press release sent on Wednesday to AGERPRES.
"For 7 days, we video monitored all the timber shipments coming out of the forest in different locations in central Brasov and Sibiu counties. The result is grim: more than 40% of shipments are illegal. Without the pretense of a statistical relevance to reflect the image of illegal harvesting at national level, the results are absolutely worrying, given that all the locations where we carried out this sampling were not considered until now risk areas regarding the prevalence of illegal exploitation. As firewood is, ironically, more and more expensive and difficult to find, the population has decided to fend for itself. Out of the total transports of wood captured on the cameras, 26% were transports of firewood (vans, harnesses) without documents such as notice / SUMAL code. Further, out of the transports that were registered in SUMAL, another 31% were identified as non-compliant shipments in which we found the fraud of the statements regarding the quantities of timber transported - flagrant overloads, with an undeclared volume reaching up to 10 cubic meters per transport. This modus operandi, through which illegally harvested timber is placed on the market, is practically allowed by the breaches in SUMAL 2, breaches recognized by the authorities but which are still not resolved," the quoted source says.
"In the early 2000s, when the level of illegal logging exploded as a result of a chaotic retrocession process, petty politicians argued that illegal logging was 'cheaper' and more readily available than loans from the International Monetary Fund, and that the proceeds from the illegal harvests will help Romania go through the transition. Today, according to the same model, our forests are condemned to pay the bill for a chaotically managed energy crisis," Radu Vlad, coordinator of regional projects in the field of forests at WWF Romania, says.
Environmental activists make a new appeal to the Romanian Parliament to urgently amend the provisions of this Ordinance and to adopt conditional compensation as a solution to protect the disadvantaged population.
SUMAL 2.0 - the integrated information system for monitoring the traceability of wood materials - was put into operation on January 31, 2021, HG 497/2020 being the piece of legislation regulating its operation.AGERPRES
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