Romania’s first large-scale afforestation
\ncampaign in the past decade kicked off last week. The authorities here believe
\nthe project will allow them to plant over 50 million saplings and rebuild
\nroughly 2 thousand forests.<\/p>\n
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The campaign, which unfolds under a
\nsuggestive title, ‘A Forest As Big As A Country’, involves the opening of
\nroughly 13 thousand afforestation sites all over the country. The project
\nstarted in Dambovita county, southern Romania, in the presence of the country’s
\npresident Klaus Iohannis, who emphasized the importance of these forests for a
\nclean environment and the fact that Romania needs to protect its virgin
\nforests. According to the president, ‘illegal logging is unacceptable in the 21st
\ncentury’. <\/p>\n
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Klaus Iohannis: I am asking
\nthe Prime Minister and the government members to find new instruments to
\nprotect Romania’s forests. The instruments created and employed by the previous
\ngovernments proved to be useless and improperly applied.<\/p>\n
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The campaign starts off against the
\nbackground of massive illegal logging conducted in the past years, when Romania
\nhas lost millions of cubic meters of wood. Scores of illegal logging operations
\nhave been reported almost on a daily basis in recent years. Forest rangers have
\nbeen killed in the line of duty, two of them last year alone; 650 of these
\nforest rangers have become victims of aggression while monitoring illegal
\nlogging operations. <\/p>\n
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As the authorities failed to stop
\nthe phenomenon, several conservationist NGOs filed complaints with the European
\nCommission and an infringement procedure was launched against Romania in
\nFebruary. The measure was taken due to the flawed legislation, which prevents
\nthe proper monitoring of illegal logging activities carried out in Romania’s
\nforests. <\/p>\n
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(translated by bill)<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Authorities in Romania have kicked off a national afforestation campaign under the patronage of the countrys president, Klaus Iohannis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":84937,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[39902,29125,32935,39903],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-84936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-afforestation","tag-iohannis","tag-ngos","tag-rangers"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n