Fuzhou, China / 19 March 2021
The new UNESCO report, published yesterday, shows that Romsilva is incapable of protecting the centuries-old beech forests and systematically subjects them to abusive logging.
“The Ministry of the Environment, through its biodiversity department, must urgently take over coordination of the UNESCO World Heritage forests and immediately ban all forestry work in these forests and their buffer zones. Otherwise, all components of the transnational site in Germany, Austria, Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Ukraine will be disqualified. Romania therefore risks a major diplomatic scandal,” warns Gabriel Păun, president of Agent Green.
The transnational UNESCO site for centuries-old beech forests in the Carpathians and other regions of Europe totals 92,023 hectares in 12 countries, including 23,981 hectares in Romania. UNESCO sites [1] represent the elite of protected natural areas worldwide. In July 2019, at the 43rd UNESCO session held in Baku, Romania was severely criticised for logging in the buffer zones of the components containing primary beech forests, and it was decided to send a new mission to our country immediately. Publication of the new report was decided yesterday following the 44th UNESCO session held in Fuzhou, China.
The UNESCO report is available here: https://whc.unesco.org/en/documents/186491/
The report criticises the fact that the current management of the Romanian components does not comply with the operational guidelines and affects the integrity of the cross-border property. UNESCO denounces clear-cutting and abusive logging concealed under the names of progressive, sanitation or conservation cutting, practices carried out by Romsilva that affect natural processes and undermine the protective functions of the buffer zones. The mission considers that forest management must follow natural processes and encourage the expansion over time of ecosystems formed by primary and centuries-old beech forests. At the same time, the paving of DN66A must be abandoned, a project that would compromise both the core and buffer zones of Domogled – Valea Cernei National Park. Agent Green protested and drew attention to these threats in July 2019, in the very core zone of this UNESCO component [2].
Protest VIDEO montage: https://vimeo.com/353141007
Raw footage available to download for free distribution:
https://vimeo.com/350689234
https://vimeo.com/350629461/ea898a7e1a
The UNESCO mission also calls for illegal logging to be combated and severely punished because it irreversibly affects natural processes in the site’s components. Last but not least, UNESCO calls on Romania to strictly protect all centuries-old and primary beech forests not yet included in the transnational site, to ensure the long-term protection of these exceptional ecosystems.
Notes:
[1] https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1133
[2] /actiune-spectaculoasa-cu-alpinisti-in-domogled-pentru-a-salva-paduri-unesco
