Europe's last virgin forests

In a time when forests fire are an increasingly high threat to worldwide ecosystems, nearby local communities and global environment, a new danger arises: massive man-made deforestation. While the phenomenon can be traced back to medieval Europe, when vasts areas of vegetation were cut down to allow cattle raising, its constant strain has reached a tipping point.

The continuous exploitation of virgin forests at a higher pace than their natural regeneration capacity means extinction of any inhabitant species, increase in temperature, lower water quality and soil instability. Moreover, as stated by The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, deforestation is the second-leading cause of climate change, accounting for nearly 20% of greenhouse gas emissions.

Between 1920 and 1935 almost 1/5 of the wooded area has been cut down

Over the recent years, the European Parliament passed multiple laws protecting forests as a means of combating global warming. These actions set the high bar of completely halting global forest cover loss by 2030 at the latest and to reduce tropical deforestation to least 50% of the current level by 2020. The reality amongst the member states is different however: a defiant Poland triples the quota of wood that can be harvested in the UNESCO World Heritage site Białowieża forest and Romania has 5 cases of illegal retrocession of forest areas between 2006 and 2018.

Sadly, this is just the tip of the iceberg. 2019 has recorded an all-time high number of logging businesses in Romania, with an aggregate income of 2.5bil euros. 6189 such firms are currently active on the market, most of which have been using the common and well known legal loophole of obtaining woodland, registering it as private property and exploiting it as such. Last year, an astounding amount of 38.6mil cubic meters of wood was cut, with no official records for more than 20mil cubic meters of it. Thus, for every tree accounted within the natural regeneration rate, another one falls to illegal exploitation.

In recent years, some huge corporations, such as IKEA and Holzindustrie Schweighofer were accused of using illegally exploited wood. Since this came into attention a lot has been written about this in national and international press, fact that determined IKEA to sell it’s factory.

Multiple investigations conducted by journalists and NGOs brought up disheartening images of entire slopes filled with nothing but stumps and matchwood. Rigged reports and groundless payments to officials triggered a strong response, with many protests and marches taking place in major cities.

However, only after 6 rangers were killed by illegal woodcutters that authorities showed signs of taking action.

In the dirty business of trafficking illegal wood are involved numerous groups containing corrupt politicians and rangers.

The wood industry will produce in 2019 2.8 billion dollars, more than ever.

The most notorious example is the ranger Liviu Pop, who was responding to a tip-off about illegal logging when he was shot dead with a hunting rifle, according to the BBC.

Liviu Pop had tried to catch red-handed some loggers stealing wood in Maramures, but was found dead a few days later, the prime suspects being the illegal woodcutters. 

A few weeks earlier, Raducu Gorcioaia was found dead in his car last month, a short distance away from an illegal logging site. He was hit numerous times with an axe, the prime suspects being, again, illegal woodcutters.

"The forest mafia has tried to kill me several times" (Gabriel Paun, head of Agent Green)

The illegal loggers assaulted NGO members and even a Netflix team, not just the rangers.

In 2015, Gabriel Paun, the head of an NGO was trying to investigate the exploitation of a forest close to a national park when he was attacked by the loggers. He ended up with multiple broken bones and ribs and a head injury. The offenders were not sentenced yet.

In 2019 a Netflix team came into the Domogled National Park trying to film a documentary about the illegal deforestation but they were blocked by the loggers who surrounded the car front and back.

But that’s not the whole story...

After a meeting with the Forest Activists, the new Ministry of Environment claimed that in 2018 alone, besides the 19.5 million cubic meters recorded in the statistics, another 19 million were cut down, resulting in a total of 38.6 million cubic meters.

Moreover, the new minister had accused the old government of taking no action to stop the illegal deforestation and even hiding the truth.

The Romanian authorities showed no real interest in reversing the deforestation. Since 2014, the area regenerated decreased constantly.

Between a gray legal area, profit-driven behaviour of logging businesses and environmentalist NGOs protests, the forest tries to survive. Its natural regeneration rate of 7.9 m^3/ha could outgrow the exploitation, if the wood cuttings do not exceed the limits imposed by authorities. However, it is the animals, birds, reptiles and fresh-water fish living here that are under immediate danger. It takes a mere 5-6 years of ecosystem unbalance for a species to go extinct from an area. So far, large mammals such as bears and medium sized ones such as wolves and lynxes were constantly pushed higher and higher in the mountains, deprived from their food source and shot whenever they approach a human settlement.

• Wikipedia
• INSSE
• BBC
• digi24.ro