Environmental groups submit new legal action to the European Commission

Press release, 22 April 2020

Environmental groups submit new legal action to the European Commission

The new complaint again targets the destruction of Romania’s protected natural areas
Environmental organisations Agent Green, ClientEarth and EuroNatur today submitted a new complaint to the European Commission and expose the catastrophic scale of illegal logging in Romania’s protected natural areas.
The complaint is directed against the Environment Ministry and criticises the lack of action on intensive logging of natural forests in protected areas, including virgin forests, which over time has led to the irreversible loss of habitats and species.

VIDEO: A National Massacre (Episode 6) – The Tragedy in Natura 2000 Protected Areas

Romania is home to two thirds of Europe’s primary and old-growth forests in the temperate climate zone. These precious ecosystems, protected by European legislation as Natura 2000 protected sites, are systematically and deliberately destroyed through large-scale logging operations approved by the Environment Ministry itself.

Ewelina Tylec-Bakalarz, ClientEarth’s wildlife and habitats lawyer, said at today’s press conference: “Intensive logging carried out or approved by the national forest administration Romsilva has caused serious deterioration of habitats and species protected under the EU nature directives. Logging in protected areas has been and remains a permanent threat to Europe’s unique ecosystems and continues to flagrantly breach EU legislation. The previous case we won to protect Poland’s Bialowieza Forest gives us hope. It demonstrated how effective European legislation can be in protecting our continent’s priceless natural assets”

The legal action follows the previous complaint submitted by the same environmental organisations, which led the European Commission in February of this year to launch infringement proceedings against the Romanian authorities for their systemic and continuing failure to protect forests. This procedure leads to huge fines being paid by the Romanian state, using taxpayers’ money, until compliance is achieved. So far, no official statement has been made about measures to avoid infringement penalties.

The previous complaint

The European Commission’s response

Gabriel Schwaderer, executive director of EuroNatur, said: “The new complaint provides the European Commission with fresh evidence showing that illegal logging is causing a deep environmental crisis affecting many protected natural areas in Romania. We hope this will give the Commission enough evidence to intervene rapidly, as this could be our last chance to act before nationwide deterioration of these unique ecosystems becomes irreversible.”

The evidence gathered by the environmental groups exposes the devastating impact of logging in the Natura 2000 sites Făgăraș, Domogled, Maramureș and Nordul Gorjului de Vest, where most habitats analysed showed severe signs of deterioration. In Maramureș, even clear-cutting over more than 10,000 hectares was documented, an area larger than the city of Paris. Veronica Tulpan, campaign coordinator at Agent Green, said: “There are entire mountains where the forest habitat has been completely removed and, with it, all wildlife. We need rapid intervention by the Commission to begin properly applying the nature directives in Romania.”

“I represent Agent Green in more than 60 court cases to gain access to classified information about the planned destruction in protected areas and to suspend logging plans. In breach of the law, Romania’s authorities continue to allow logging without considering specific conservation objectives for species and habitats in areas protected at Community level, which should be protected as a priority. This has also been noted by courts that suspended some forest management plans for this reason, such as Avrig, Domogled, Lerești, where the New complaint submitted today to the European Commission shows is essential to put the Romanian authorities on the right track,” concluded Cătălina Rădulescu, Agent Green’s lawyer.

Contacts

• EuroNatur: Anja Arning, arning@euronatur.org, Tel.: +49 7732 – 92 72 13

• Agent Green: Veronica Tulpan, veronica.tulpan@agentgreen.org, Tel.: 0723387203
  Cătălina Rădulescu (lawyer), info@agentgreen.org, Tel.: 0745138165

• ClientEarth: Bianca Vergnaud, bvergnaud@clientearth.org Tel: +32 2 808 34 72

Background information

• Approximately 300,000 hectares of forest in Romania are Natura 2000 sites. Many protected animals, such as strictly protected large carnivores (lynx, wolf, bear), the black stork, owls, woodpeckers, bats and beetles, depend on them for survival.
• Despite efforts by Romanian civil society groups to stop illegal logging, the situation has continued to deteriorate. The National Forest Inventory shows that, in addition to the 18 million m3 of legally harvested timber, another 8.8 million m3 of forest material went missing annually between 2009 and 2013, while between 2014 and 2018 the figure reached 20.6 million m3 of missing timber annually.
• The “SaveParadiseForests” campaign aims to protect the Carpathians’ most valuable old-growth forests, especially those in Romania. It is coordinated and carried out jointly by the NGOs EuroNatur (Germany) and Agent Green (Romania).

Resources

Media briefing (PDF in Romanian)

Briefing paper on the complaint to the European Commission

Briefing paper on Natura 2000 areas: Fagaras, Maramures and Domogled

Memes

Relevant videos: Primary forests, Maramures, Fagaras, Logging in Romania, Short videos for social media

Archive note: the original “Memes” and “Short videos for social media” folders are no longer available at the published addresses.

About EuroNatur

EuroNatur is a nature conservation foundation based in Radolfzell, Germany. Our efforts for a Europe with free-flowing rivers, ancient forests and a rich variety of cultural landscapes cross borders; we support local conservation organisations and build international networks between them. Together with our Europe-wide partner network, we create solutions that allow people to live and work in harmony with nature. Our goal is a strong network committed to protecting our European natural heritage.

About Agent Green

Agent Green Association is an NGO for environmental protection and biodiversity conservation established in 2009 in Romania. Founded to protect the Retezat Mountains, one of the last intact forest landscapes in Europe’s temperate climate, Agent Green has engaged in investigations, strategic cooperation and effective campaigns aimed at bringing positive, lasting change for nature

About ClientEarth

ClientEarth is an organisation that uses the power of the law to protect people and the planet. We are international lawyers finding practical solutions to the world’s greatest environmental challenges. We fight climate change, protect oceans and wildlife, make energy greener, make business more responsible and promote government transparency. We see the law as a tool for positive change. From our offices in London, Brussels, Warsaw, Berlin and Beijing, we work on laws from proposals through to implementation. And when those laws are broken, we go to court to enforce them.