Romsilva trampled on the government’s programme for strict protection of national parks

Romsilva trampled on the government’s programme for strict protection of national parks

The Environment Ministry discusses the resulting crisis with environmental NGOs today

Băile Herculane, 11 August 2022 – Agent Green draws attention to the poor coordination between Romsilva and the Environment Ministry over the government’s commitment, made at the start of its term, to strictly protect Romania’s 13 national parks. Today in Băile Herculane, the Environment Ministry is organising a series of events for NGOs and the press to discuss the future of Domogled – Valea Cernei National Park.

Information on the problems facing Romania’s national parks.

All 13 parks, whose forests account for just 1% of the country’s area, should be strictly protected under the government’s programme. The minister’s first departure from this commitment came when he recently announced that Domogled would be the first protected park, leaving the other 12 out of the discussion. An event is taking place today at Domogled’s headquarters about its future management plan, although its fate was decided months ago when Romsilva prepared a new forest management plan providing for abusive logging across most of the park’s wooded areas, with the strictly protected zone set to be larger on alpine grasslands. Although not yet approved by the minister, the new forest management plan can be implemented because the law allows this once two rounds of public consultation have taken place. At the spring consultations, which Agent Green also attended, no account was taken of the organisation’s proposals, the government’s programme, the minister’s announcement, the EU nature directives, the EU Biodiversity Strategy or UNESCO’s requirements. Some of Domogled’s forests have entered UNESCO World Heritage, with the remainder included in the heritage buffer zone, where intervention is likewise prohibited to ensure proper protection of the core areas of centuries-old beech forests.

“We are in a situation where Romsilva, which is ultimately just an administrator, tramples on the government, the European Commission, UNESCO and citizens’ wishes, with the latest national poll showing that 90% want strict protection of national parks,” said Gabriel Păun, president of Agent Green.

Today’s event was announced only a few days beforehand, also breaching the public-participation rules Romania undertook when adopting the Aarhus Convention. Nevertheless, several members of the organisation gave up holidays or other scheduled activities to bring warnings and solutions for the ministry to correct its departures from course in recent months.

Cătălina Rădulescu, Agent Green’s lawyer, proposes the following options to Minister Tanczos Barna to stop Romsilva’s planned logging and genuinely protect the park:

– amend Order 1134/2020 to exclude the possibility that the same individual or legal entity hired to draft the first version of the forest management plan is also hired to conduct the strategic environmental assessment and appropriate assessment studies

– amend the Forest Code and Emergency Ordinance 57/2007 so that forests in national parks receive strict protection under TI on at least 75% of their area and TII in the rest of the park, thus also responding to the European Biodiversity Strategy. Ensure these provisions are included in the park’s new management plan

– ensure coordination between the forest management plan of the Baia de Aramă Forest District and the zoning proposed for the future management plan (in which forests would receive strict protection under Ti and TII); otherwise Article 22 of Emergency Ordinance 57/2007 is violated

– ensure all virgin and quasi-virgin forests are identified as specified by Agent Green in its preliminary complaint and submitted observations.

– amend the law so that the APVs issued under the suspended forest management plan and included in the timber catalogue are revoked, with these forestry operations then taking account of the new plan.

– ask APM Gorj and the Baia de Aramă Forest District to act on the observations in Agent Green’s preliminary complaint concerning disclosure of all information needed by the public and the resumption of the strategic environmental assessment and appropriate assessment procedures. This information is:

1. The coordinates of the survey plots, their survey dates, the specialist and the results for the composition of plant, shrub and tree species.
2. The coordinates of the observation points/transects for each species protected in the N2000 site.
3. The map of the boundaries of the mapped N2000 habitats for the appropriate assessment, at a scale of 1:20,000.
4. The species distribution map at a scale of 1:20,000 for each N2000 species, and the name of the specialist who prepared it and of the specialist who collected the field data.

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