The selection process for the Director General of the National Forest Administration – Romsilva is approaching its final stage, at an important moment for the strategic direction of managing publicly owned state forests.
WWF-Romania considers it necessary to reaffirm a fundamental principle: the foundation of a real reform is the framework established through the “Letter of Expectations” of the coordinating public authority, which includes strategic objectives, public service obligations and performance indicators. The reform of Romsilva is therefore not a process that depends exclusively on the person of the Director General. Although it represents an important step, it is not sufficient in the reform process.
We have previously shown that, in its current form, public service obligations are formulated and framed without adequate grounding in relation to their strategic role and the provisions of the current legislative framework. A significant part of the performance indicators are not aligned with the objectives of the National Forest Strategy (SNP30) and do not provide an adequate synthesis of the specific non-financial expectations, according to the applicable legal provisions. At the same time, some annual targets for performance indicators appear to lack relevance in relation to the level of ambition required to support a real increase in institutional performance.
In this context, the role of the future Director General is, on the one hand, circumscribed to the framework established through the “Letter of Expectations” and the future Government Decision on the reorganization of Romsilva. On the other hand, it remains fundamental through the capacity to assume and support a coherent managerial vision in relation to legal obligations, national and European objectives and the legitimate expectations of society.
Even if the current selection process is built around already approved objectives and performance indicators and an administrative structure that is still unknown, we consider that there are a number of forward-looking questions to which the future leadership should relate. These derive from:
- the legitimate expectations of society regarding the management of state forests;
- the need to align secondary legislation to the new Forest Code with the objectives of the National Forest Strategy 2030;
- the implementation of European commitments in the fields of biodiversity, nature restoration and climate change adaptation.
In this regard, WWF-Romania proposes a set of open questions addressed to candidates and to the Board of Directors coordinating the selection process. These questions cannot replace the formal criteria of the ongoing procedure, but rather address the structural challenges that the future leadership will inevitably face, regardless of the current configuration of expectations formulated by the Ministry in 2025.
Clarity of the managerial vision on these topics is essential for the credibility and stability of the future mandate.
The management of publicly owned state forests requires not only managerial competence, but also the assumption of a major strategic stake for society.
Strategic benchmarks for the future mandate
Redefining public service obligations – prioritizing the public interest in the management of state forests
- Are there other activities of Romsilva which, in relation to the provisions of the Forest Code, the objectives of the National Forest Strategy 2030 and the public interest associated with the management of state forests, could be analyzed with a view to their classification as “public service obligations”?
- Will the evaluation of these situations be considered part of the managerial responsibility and, if applicable, will the need to reassess their classification be signaled to the coordinating authority?
We raise this issue because, according to GEO 109/2011, the costs incurred by the National Forest Administration – Romsilva for fulfilling public service obligations must be covered by the state budget or by other dedicated public funds. The correct definition of these obligations is essential in order to avoid both their underfunding and the dilution of their content. Society has legitimate expectations regarding the maintenance and improvement of the ecosystem services generated by forests, including in terms of the valorisation and higher-level processing, at local level, of forest resources originating from public property.
N.B. “Public service obligations”, as defined according to GEO no. 109/2011, represent “the set of special tasks performed by public enterprises, which a private enterprise would not assume from an economic perspective in the normal course of its activity”.
Minimum profit reinvestment threshold required to fulfil management obligations
- What is the reasonable minimum threshold of profit reinvestment that the management will propose and support, considering that this is the main resource available for financing investments in the reform of the Administration?
In the logic of corporate governance (GEO 109/2011), objectives, performance indicators and the management plan must be correlated with real resources, so that Romsilva can operate competitively and transparently.
Strengthening integrity and traceability in timber valorisation
- In the context of the need to increase integrity and traceability in timber valorisation, will you, as Director General, support the introduction, through the Regulation on timber sales, of the principle according to which payment for standing timber is made exclusively for the quantities actually declared at first entry on the market?
- How do you propose to reorganise guarding and control mechanisms in order to focus checks at the critical point of the timber chain of custody – the first placing on the market – thus reducing risks of undervaluation and losses for the state?
- How will you ensure that the Due Diligence System and timber transport control plans are based on an objective risk analysis using data updated periodically, and that the methodology and criteria for risk assessment are developed and applied transparently?
Higher value use of timber and strengthening a sustainable forest bioeconomy downstream of the forest
- Taking into account the strategic objectives of the National Forest Strategy 2030 – Objectives 3.1 and 3.2 – what are the practical solutions through which the contribution of Romsilva to the sustainable socioeconomic development of local communities can be increased, through vertical value chains of higher-level processing, in relation to the forest resource consumed from state forests?
- How will higher value use of timber from state forests be advanced, its cascading use promoted and a sustainable forest bioeconomy downstream of the forest strengthened?
- What mechanisms will facilitate access to forest resources for businesses in sectors specific to the forest sector, depending on their contribution to the socioeconomic development of local communities, in relation to the volume of forest resources consumed?
Expanding the protection of high conservation value forests and mobilising funding for biodiversity
- What measures can ensure, on a sustainable basis, the identification and the assumption of an appropriate protection regime for 10% of the publicly owned state forest fund, as “priority areas for biodiversity”?
- What mechanisms and under what conditions can be developed by the National Forest Administration – Romsilva for initiating and implementing projects aimed at attracting funding for biodiversity, including based on the directions established by the European Commission through the “Roadmap towards Nature Credits”?
Transparency of conservation values in the state forest fund
- Is the development of an online information platform envisaged, which would highlight all public interest information regarding high conservation values and areas within the publicly owned state forest fund that have special cultural, ecological, economic, religious or spiritual significance, for which local communities hold rights?
Strengthening forest resilience in the context of climate change
- To what extent will you assume the coordination of the development and implementation of a national intervention plan to increase forest resilience and their capacity to adapt to the effects of natural hazards, in the context of climate change?
- What concrete mechanisms are envisaged for integrating this responsibility into the strategic and operational planning of the Administration, so that forest resilience becomes a measurable objective of forest management?
Forest Inventory of publicly owned state forests – a reflection of management quality
- Will the development of a Forest Inventory at the level of publicly owned state forests, aimed at monitoring the main indicators characterising sustainable forest management, be supported?
- How can the integration of this tool into the Administration’s planning and reporting system be ensured, so that environmental indicators become part of the evaluation of institutional performance and function as a true “reflection” of the quality of forest management applied in publicly owned state forests?
Implementation of forest ecosystem restoration objectives
- How can coordination of the implementation of restoration measures be ensured, which are to be established as the contribution of publicly owned state forests to achieving the targets and objectives set out in the National Nature Restoration Plan, in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2024/1991?
- In the absence of specific restoration indicators integrated into the current performance evaluation system, how can compatibility be ensured between the targets to be assumed through the National Restoration Plan and the financial objectives of the Administration?