English Version - United Nations Development Programme Romania

Unfortunately, we can also observe a decline in the field of forestry, visible in the decrease of
the volume of forestry works: regeneration, care, protection, ecological rebuilding of stands and access to
the forest fund, due to lack of financial resources.
Activities of restocking the degraded lands and of planting protective forest belts were practically
abandoned, while: a) water erosion expands to over 7 million ha (out of which 2 million hectares are
seriously affected by erosion) and wind erosion affects 0.4 million ha; b) excessive dry periods are
frequent on 7 million ha; c) landslides affect 7 million ha; d) there are 2,150 hydrographic basins showing
a tendency towards extremely heavy rains. These man-made processes tend to accelerate.
In addition to all the listed factors, there is a delay in implementing the real reform and the
institutional restructuring of the forestry industry, as well as in the adoption of a forestry legislation
harmonised with European law. Financial problems, poverty of the rural population and the lack of forest
awareness are further causes that obstruct the sustainable management of forests. There is no strong
political lobbying for the protection and sustainable development of forests, as politicians demonstrate a
keen interest only in forestry exploitation and in reinstalling property rights, but very little in their
sustainable management. The Parliament and the political partie s do not do anything to increase public
awareness concerning the fundamental importance of forests in (I) protecting the ecological balance of
the country (II) the sustainable development of the national economy and culture.
b) Strategic actions leading to sustainable management of forests in Romania
Ensuring the integrity of the country's forests, by respecting the situation resulting after the changes
in the law on ownership and with full observance of the said law. To achieve this, it is necessary to
introduce new legislation banning the reduction of forest area under any circumstances, with certain
exceptions, of course, and with the approval from superior echelons. Special attention must be paid to
the conservation of the forest vegetation that is located outside the forestry fund and also to the
currently endangered forests called “forested pasturelands,” whose area is in excess of 400,000
hectares.
Restocking of the forestry fund to the optimum level of 35% of the country's territory (with regional
differences: 10% in the plains, 25% in the hilly regions, 65% in the mountainous area), phased as
follows:
Levels 1999 2010 2020 Long term
Forested Areas
(% of country area) 26.7 28 31 35
The means by which this objective can be attained are the following:
* Afforestation of degraded and abandoned agricultural lands (65,000 ha until 2010 and
300,000 ha until 2020);
* Creation of protective forest belts and anti-erosion shelter belts (2,000 km until 2010 and
10,000 km until 2020);
* Creation of green belts around cities and towns, as well as watercourse regulation in the
case of streams (2,500 km of stream network until 2020).
Ecological rebuilding of forests structurally damaged by natural and human-related factors; this will
include forest re-naturalisation of some areas in the along the course of the Danube and of some
interior rivers. This will be extended gradually to almost 20,000 hectares annually during the period
2000-2010 and to 30,000 hectares annually during the period 2010-2020.
Limitation of the volume of annual wood exploitation to the forests capacity level (16-16.2 million
m³/year. In the period 2000-2010 and 16.5-17.5 million m³/year in the period 2010-2020). The
mechanical and chemical wood processing industry will be adapted to meet these parameters, and so
with wood exportation. The export of unprocessed wood and of only slightly processed wood
products is damaging for the national economy.
In order to put to better use the resources offered by forests, it is necessary to build roads in order to
facilitate access to the 2 million hectares of mountain forests which are presently inaccessible, with
the following dynamic phasing:
Levels (years) 1995 2000 2010 2020
Roads(m/hectares) 6.2 6.3 7.5 12.0
The necessary funds for this process (around 50,000$/km) will be generated by many sources: selffinancing,
national budget, international financial support.
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