Hundreds of Hectares of Romanian Forest Have Disappeared

In January 2013, the WWF conducted a study, which shows that pollution and deforestation are one of the major problems affecting the world's population. Photo via.

Forests are boring and talking about their destruction is even worse – isn't that right, you ignoramus? If you didn't have any forests you'd be breathing tar, just like the people of Bucharest, where I happen to be from. You'd also have to replace your car/bike/tube carriage with a boat, because forests help drain rain water, while the mountainous areas would be filled with homeless people, because forests play an important role  in local economies.

Between 1990 and 2011, hundreds of thousands of hectares of Romanian forest were deforested, both by private companies and the government. About 900 hectares of woodland disappeared over a period of four years in the region of Agres alone without anyone noticing – until 2012, when a reforestation process started. The cost of that operation has now reached about €2 billion (£1.6 billion), and that's only paying for replanting in half of the affected area – there are still hundreds of hectares that nobody's taking care of.

I spoke with Radu Vlad, co-ordinator of the reforestation programme at the World Wide Fund for Nature, to find out how long it will be before we're suffocating in our sleep.

Photo via World Bank Photo Collection

VICE:  What is the state of the forests in Romania?
WWF: In terms of quantity, the trees are spread over a surface that is 10 percent larger than it was in the 1990s, because of agricultural production and activities like animal husbandry and hay stacking, which were encouraged after the fall of communism. But that doesn't mean that the forest is OK. The surface of a forest is calculated by the terrain it's on, so even a forest in which all the trees have been cut to their stumps is considered "forested". Sometimes the surface is theoretically grown by also calling the terrain occupied with shrubbery and grasslands for feeding animals, a forest. Which is why the National Statistics Institute says Romania has more forests than ten years ago.

Quality-wise, forests have suffered a lot. Even though they count as forested areas, these places have been severely trimmed down or completely removed, without any chances of regeneration. But there are still forests that have been taken care of properly and which are still helping the environment.

How do Romanian forests compare to the EU ones?
We are under the European average for forested areas by eight percent, but that's not really something bad, because quality-wise we are much better than most. Our forests were taken care of naturally so there are numerous species of trees that are much more resistant and they offer superior lumber. Plus they are home to certain wild animal species that the EU's forests haven't seen in years like bears, wild-cats and wolves.

How did Romanian forests end up in this condition?
Giving back the forested terrains taken during communism was done completely at random, and they brought on all sorts of opportunists. The turmoil surrounding the country after 1989 led to the forests being transformed into fast profit. The governments lack of action also encouraged this opportunistic business practice, so the forests were degraded. The laws covering deforestation haven't been changed since the fall of communism.

Where is the deforestation most obvious and what's the damage?
Approximately 500,000 hectares – which are private property – go unsupervised so most of the illegal cutting is done there. The most affected areas are coniferous forests, because their wood is in high demand. The WWF wants to make a map of the most exposed areas, along with all parties involved: the authorities, the companies and the NGOs.

But the damage is hard to estimate – a hectare of forested woods is worth about 5000 Euros (about £4200). That's without counting the damage done to the environment, for which there is no methodology in the law anyway. You can find more concrete info in the National Audit Agency's report.

How large is the surface that needs to be reforested and who's paying for the procedure?
The surface which was cut illegally is over 600 thousand hectares wide. A part of it was naturally reforested, so it's hard to make an estimate of the costs. National and European funds can't cover the reforesting, because most of these forests are private (in 2011, almost 35 percent of the forested area in Romania belonged to the private sector). If they got involved, that would create a dangerous precedent which would encourage illegal practices.

How can 900 hectares of forest just disappear?
The will of the politicians, the impotence of the institutions and of course their complicity are at the core of the problem. The fact that we don't have a precedent for applying any laws against the people who deforest is one of the many things that worsen this situation.

Who is responsible for the deforestation: the private owners, the rangers or the police?
Any of them – as well as the companies who are exploiting the wood and the ones who are using it. The list can go on with the representatives from the Territorial Foresting and Hunting Institution, the police, the prosecutors and the judges. Most of the time there's a deal between all parts involved. Ironically I think the one least responsible is the owner of the forested land who is practically pushed from all directions into doing things illegally, because nobody will encourage him to make a respectable operation.

Society as a whole doesn't encourage smart foresting, even though we all pay an ecological tax. All the blame falls on the shoulders of the little guy, the one who doesn't have any way of making money other than cutting trees. (The forests in Romania are worth between 5 and 20 Euros per hectare, per year).

**I know that most of those who were indicted until now never suffered any real consequences because the foresting code does not apply to the penal code. That's what happened *in December* last year. Would a new foresting code solve this situation?**
The case is always dismissed after the judge considers that the woodcutter is not a danger for society, especially if the man is cutting down his own forest. The ones who end up in court are usually those who barely stole a few cubic meters of wood. The current law says that illegal cutting is a crime only if the quantity of wood stolen is worth more than five times the price of a foot of wood. A foresting code won't solve this problem.

What other measures are needed?
There is desperate need for new measures. The most effective would be to control the manufacturing and processing of plants and forbid companies from using illegal wood. It's much easier to control a maximum of 4,000 companies, than to guard the billions of trees in the woods.