The project’s target this spring amounts
\nto 100 hectares and benefits from financial support from the European
\nCommission through its LIFE programme. 435 thousand seedlings are being planted
\nin four environmental reconstruction areas: at Groapele, a region affected by
\nmassive logging and arsons, Dobroneagu, Valea Dambovitei and Leresti. The
\nseedlings of local species either come from Carpathia nurseries or are
\npurchased from local producers. Here is Mihai Zota, conservationist director
\nwith the aforementioned foundation. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Mihai
\nZota: I can tell you there is a
\nlong way from planting these seedlings to a real forest, particularly in our
\ncase as we are trying to rebuild the natural forest environments, which existed
\nin this area but have been cut down. It was a certain trend back in the
\ncommunist era, but also after it, to replace forests of beech and sycamore with
\nspruce as spruce was believed to be a species which takes to the soil faster
\nand its timber can be used in constructions. We are now doing some history
\nresearch in an attempt to identify the real forests that were covering these
\nareas in ancient times and try to rebuild them accordingly. This aspect is very
\nimportant to us because we believe that nature knew better than us, people,
\nwhich are the right type of trees to cover a certain area, as this process
\nhappened in millions of years. And whenever man intervenes, nature fights back
\nand we are witnessing all sorts of unwanted phenomena, like the appearance of
\nhuge swarms of insects, windsnaps, windthrows etc. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Mr. Zota is actually referring here to an
\nenvironmental reconstruction instead of reforestation because the process of
\ncreating a new forest entails many more activities besides the actual planting
\nof trees. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Mihai
\nZota: We are conducting tests
\non various hectares in all these areas in an attempt to identify how many
\nnatural seedlings we are having on the ground. Seedlings appear naturally after
\nany logging, but they are not enough to make the forest regenerate by itself. We
\nalways find seedlings from various species after deforestation. Afterwards we
\nare making comparisons between what was the forest like many years ago and then
\nwe drew our conclusions what species to plant so that we rebuild the forest
\nlike it was back then. We are not trying to outclass the engineering skills of
\nmother nature but we are making some predictions because research shows that in
\nthe next 50 years, forests are likely to go up at least 100 meters, covering
\nmore land uphill. And if we are now seeing beech trees at 14 hundred meters up
\nin the Fagaras mountains, in 50 years we are going to see it at altitudes of 16
\nhundred meters. So, we are trying to take into account these phenomena,
\ninfluenced by global warming of course. After we have identified the
\ncomposition and the number of seedlings we are going to need, we do our work in
\ntwo big stages, in spring and autumn. Why we need two stages? Because we have
\nnoticed, that due to climate changes, the period of time we can plant these
\nseedlings has shortened. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The seedlings used in this project come
\nfrom two nurseries and greenhouses and they have been grown naturally in good
\nconditions, without chemical additives used. So, the process of building a
\nforest from scratch isn’t simple at all and needs maintenance works for at
\nleast seven years. Without the proper monitoring and constant maintenance, such
\nbarren areas are difficult to be built into real forests. Besides all its
\nenvironmental functions, a forest like this can sustain an entire social
\nsystem. 120 daily workers and scores of forestry employees are presently being
\ninvolved with suchlike reforestation projects.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
(bill)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Carpathia Conservation Foundation jointly with the Forest District Association have kicked off a reforestation programme in the areas recently destroyed by large-scale logging in the Fagaras Mountains, central Romania<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":153488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44315],"tags":[40018,44442,35584,35150,32929,37289,44443],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-153487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-green-planet","tag-deforestation","tag-fagaras","tag-forests","tag-logging","tag-mountains","tag-programmes","tag-seedling"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n