The publication in the Official Gazette of the Regulation on the use of special devices for marking trees opens an important opportunity to improve the efficiency of the control system in Romania. The final form of the regulation takes into account the proposals supported by WWF-Romania, making possible the transition from the current system, based on the “marking” and guarding of trees in the forest, to a system focused on controlling the volumes of timber at the moment they are placed on the market, after harvesting.
This is, in fact, the direction of a genuine reform: payments for contracted and harvested timber should no longer be rigidly linked to volumes estimated before harvesting, but to the quantities of timber officially declared upon entering the market.
The regulation creates the possibility for forest districts to establish pilot areas where tree harvesting can be carried out without the use of special marking devices, without the commercialization of estimated volumes. It is a change with real potential, which can create the necessary space for testing a new way of assessing and monitoring timber volume, simpler, more transparent and more efficient.
This change represents one of the important steps stemming from the new Forest Code and, at the same time, a relevant milestone of the National Forest Strategy 2030, the second after the completion of the Wood Balance. If the first important step was to bring more data and clarity in understanding timber flows, the next natural step is to test procedures that allow real control of volumes and traceability, where timber can be measured accurately and verified objectively.
Field testing – the decisive step for advancing the reform
The forest is the reflection of responsible management when we have pilot areas without tree marking, and the focus is placed on what remains in the forest. WWF recalls that tree marking is not a relevant indicator of forest condition. Instead, control should be centered on:
- future trees
- biodiversity trees
- deadwood
- maintaining ecological elements that can be verified in the field,
monitoring timber materials introduced to the market.
The real challenge begins now. It is necessary for this new framework to be applied and tested in pilot areas, under conditions of efficiency, transparency and administrative responsibility. If implementation is successful in these pilot areas, it could have real chances of being promoted and replicated – the only way through which the transition can be achieved, and this long-awaited administrative reform carried out.
The success of such pilot implementation could create the premises for promoting and replicating the model on a larger scale. Reform cannot be achieved only through the text of the law. It must be demonstrated in the field, through testing, evaluation and gradual scaling.
We welcome the bold step taken by the authorities and consider it important to support this openness towards simplicity, transparency and efficiency. In a field often blocked between mistrust, rigidity and excessive bureaucracy, it is essential to keep the space for real change open.
Romania needs a system that inspires trust, produces solid evidence, supports competitiveness, reduces controversies between estimates and reality, and allows for modern forest management. Pilot areas can become the place where this change truly begins.