Romania’s desertification: a threat downplayed and poorly addressed by the authorities

Romania’s desertification: a threat downplayed and poorly addressed by the authorities

PNRR afforestation funds must be redirected to address the cause rather than the effect

Bucharest, 4 July 2021 – Agent Green warns that Romania’s desertification is becoming irreversible and will affect the country’s habitability and food sovereignty because no state measure takes worsening climate change into account.

“Climate change is a global threat, but much also depends on what we can do in Romania to mitigate its effects so that we can continue to have a habitable country with water, food and biodiversity. Yet so far I see only criminal recklessness among the authorities. It is our duty to sound the alarm because it has become very late to save anything,” warns Gabriel Păun, president of Agent Green.

The European Commission recently approved a significant sum that Romania will be able to access through the PNRR for afforestation. As early as February 2021, Agent Green provided the government with written proposals for spending this money wisely, but the proposed solutions were ignored. They included using EC funds to increase the country’s forested area from 29% to 40% by 2032: almost 3 million hectares of abandoned and degraded farmland with new forests that could have been established had the money been invested in automated nurseries, which do not currently exist in Romania. Instead, there is a shortage of seedlings to plant. With the same money, the government will be able, at best, to increase forest cover only from 29% to 29.2%. That means a lot of money poorly spent, squandering the last real chance to tame the climate. Environment Ministry representatives announced this at the event in Romania’s Parliament for Forest Day, when the project to afforest Oltenia’s desert was presented. The rest of the money is planned for bureaucratic and questionable schemes for private landowners, in terms of guaranteeing the establishment of viable forests. But Romania already has a reputation for simulating afforestation, having recently been sanctioned by OLAF, including on this issue.

“The government intends to spend a large share of PNRR money afforesting Oltenia’s desert, which is already a compromised area. An open-air museum of stupidity should be built there. Water reserves in the plains have become almost non-existent. Logic tells me that afforestation must begin where water still exists, along all rivers. Then these forests must be widened and, wherever possible, joined up. We are facing extreme drought, and the sun, which intensifies water evaporation, must be prevented from reaching the ground. The national landscape must become a mosaic of forests and plains. More forest means more water stored in the soil, benefiting crops and the climate. Yet today, in most lowland areas, you can look 360 degrees around without seeing a tree. I suggest presidential intervention in this direction,” Păun says. (Linked PDF in Romanian.)

Model mosaic landscape with a flowing river bordered by gallery forests beside cultivated farmland

Romania’s new climate includes higher temperatures and less precipitation, unevenly distributed in time and space.

“Alongside extinction for a number of species, this means that we will gradually and inevitably lose our reserves of water and land for producing food. Today we are not discussing the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, only forests. And not even the forests that already exist and that the authorities abuse. We are talking about the unique chance to plant millions of hectares of forest on abandoned and degraded land, a chance Romania is about to deliberately miss in the name of greed, corruption and recklessness. This is my fist banging on President Klaus Iohannis’s desk,” Păun concluded.

A maize crop threatened by severe weather