The National Forestry Strategy under Scrutiny
On Monday Romania presented its National Forestry Strategy 2030
Mihai Pelin, 23.08.2022, 14:00
The National Forestry Strategy 2030, which is
part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), was presented in
Romania on Monday. According to Environment Minister Tanczos Barna, the
strategy comes with a new approach in terms of control and restrictions and
provides for raising the forested areas by 56 thousand hectares until the year
2026. The national forestry strategy builds a new future for Romania’s forests;
the minister went on to say. In his opinion, the new strategy lays emphasis on
increasing the responsibility of the owners, on protection and biodiversity and
also provides for subsidies to owners whose forests are in the protection area.
Tanczos
Barna: The strategy comes with a new approach in terms of control and
restrictions so that the increased responsibility of the owners may lead to a
better implementation of this strategy. At the same time the forest’s role of
protection, of biodiversity, this social service the forests provide to the
entire community, continues to be very, very important. So we are going to
raise the surface of forests and strictly protect them but the sate must also
provide subsidies and offer support to owners whose forests are in the
protection areas.
The aforementioned strategy will have to be
endorsed by the government until September 30th. Then a new
legislation is needed. According to Barna, Parliament must endorse a new
forestry code in 2023. And because the forestry strategy has been included in
the National Plan of Recovery and Resilience, its most important objectives
will benefit from EU funds.
The forestry strategy comes after 400 thousand
hectares of farmland in 34 Romanian counties have been affected by drought this
year and many Romanian farmers want to build their own irrigation systems.
Under the latest legislative amendments, farmers
are allowed to build local irrigation systems. The state pledges to cover 50%
of the price of electricity used by such local irrigation systems while the
water used in the process is free of charge.
The surface affected by wildfires fueled by the
drought has this year been 10 times higher than the average of the past 15
years. The former chief of the Environment Guard, Octavian Berceanu, has
cautioned that the ashes will eventually affect the urban areas, which presently
lack any forest barriers. According to the European information system, roughly
150 thousand hectares of land have been destroyed by fire in Romania this year
as compared to 15 thousand between 2006 and 2021. With 0.63% of its surface
affected by fire, Romania comes second at EU level after Portugal and is
followed by Spain and Croatia.
(bill)
