Romania’s government called on to protect the forests

Last week, on 4^th and 5^th February, the conservation of Europe’s ancient forests was the subject of an international conference convened by the European Commission. In an open letter, EuroNatur and other nature conservation organisations are calling on Romania’s leading politicians to halt the clear felling of its primeval forests.

Amongst our demands are that the exploitation of the state-owned ancient and primeval forests is stopped immediately, and that compensation is paid to private forest owners in return for agreeing to the halting of large-scale removal of timber from their land. EuroNatur and their partners are offering close cooperation with the Romanian authorities on the management of these habitats.

Much of the primeval forest in the EU is to be found in the Romanian Carpathian Mountains. A study conducted by EuroNatur over the past year identified more than 525,000 hectares of potential ancient or primeval forest. More than half of this is located in Natura 2000 areas and is thus protected – at least on paper. In reality, even in these areas, large scale clear felling of the forest is still occurring.