Saving forests in court

Support the lawsuits for forests

They are the only way to save them

It has been a busy year. An even harder one lies ahead. We need you!

The courts have become the only way to save forests. Make a monthly or one-off donation too and help us sustain these cases. We have had hundreds of lawsuits in recent years. We need you to sustain the current ones and plan for future ones. Every contribution counts and means a real chance for forests.

What did we do in 2023?

In 2023, we continued lawsuits begun earlier concerning forest management plans unlawfully adopted without a strategic environmental assessment or an appropriate assessment.

• We won appeals in cases lost at first instance, such as the case concerning Topana Forest, where the court ordered a retrial.

• We won a very important appeal concerning the building permit for the Porțile de Fier – Reșita overhead power line, where we litigated for several years solely over the procedure for bringing the challenge before a court. Eventually, the Bucharest Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and retained the case for a ruling on the merits.

• We continued to win access-to-public-information cases against the Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests, as it still refuses to disclose in full the forest management plans for forests in Bucegi Park, despite numerous court judgments and the infringement proceedings initiated on this issue by the European Commission.

• The Ministry refuses to disclose the part of the forest management plan describing the forest and the approved treatments, their location and the corresponding maps, making it impossible to understand how the plan would affect the forest and the species and habitats affected. Similarly, private forest districts also refuse disclosure, although cases have been won against them too, most recently against the Codrii verzi Forest District.

What are we doing now?

• We have initiated a series of lawsuits to annul screening decisions for management plans such as that of Retezat National Park and forest management plans such as that of Văliug Forest District, unlawfully adopted, which endanger the integrity of forests and Natura 2000 sites.
• We have initiated a petition to the European Parliament to protect the brown bear species, which is threatened by Romanian legislation that breaches the Habitats Directive, and we are preparing a national court action for this purpose.
• One of the most serious cases concerns the unlawful construction of a ski lift and ski slope in Bucegi Natural Park by the Mayor of Sinaia, in the Park’s sustainable management zone, where all construction unrelated to protected-area management is prohibited. In the process, a magnificent habitat of rhododendrons, a species protected at European level and of rare beauty, was destroyed.
• In future, we will continue the litigation already begun and focus on how forest management plans in protected areas are drawn up. We will continue our efforts to obtain access to forest management plans and also assess management plans and their compliance with IUCN standards and the Habitats Directive.
• In several cases of unlawful actions resulting in damage to forests, species and habitats, we filed criminal complaints that have not been resolved by the prosecutors’ offices notified, such as the situation in Bucegi National Park, the falsified forest management plan of OS Boisoara Enterprise SRL in the Făgăraș Mountains, and the unlawful commissioning of the small hydropower plant on the Taia River in Hunedoara County, for which there are also infringement proceedings against Romania.
• In the Taia case, we challenged in court the environmental permit unlawfully issued without an environmental assessment and in breach of the authority of a previous judgment, and the court, composed of a magistrate formerly employed by the intelligence services of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dismissed our action and ordered us to pay a huge amount in the opposing party’s legal costs, approximately 40,000 euros. We appealed against this ruling.
• A case initiated three years ago concerning the falsification of the documentation underlying a screening decision approving a forest management plan for OS Boisoara Forest Enterprise was closed for a second time without genuine investigation of the reported offences, over which a new complaint was filed with the court.
• We filed a complaint against DNA, which refuses to recognise our status as an injured party in the criminal complaints we initiated to protect the brown bear species.

Make a monthly or one-off donation for the lawsuits too. We cannot fight this battle alone. Let’s give the forests we still have a real chance.