WWF Romania welcomes the publication for public consultation of the draft Order approving the National Catalogue of Priority Areas for Biodiversity, considering this initiative a milestone in the implementation of the National Forest Strategy 2030, the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, and the commitments undertaken by Romania through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
The Catalogue of Priority Areas for Biodiversity (PAB) represents a new public policy instrument through which Romania aims to develop a national network of Priority Areas for Biodiversity, capable of contributing to the protection of natural heritage and to achieving the objectives undertaken by 2030.
WWF appreciates the efforts of the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests to make this instrument operational, as well as the commitment of the National Forest Administration – Romsilva to include, from this very first stage, significant areas of high conservation value forests that are publicly owned by the state.
According to preliminary assessments carried out by WWF-Romania, the National Forest Administration – Romsilva has committed to designating more than 320,000 hectares of forests as Priority Areas for Biodiversity, exceeding the threshold of 10% of the state-owned forests under its management.
“Basically, one in ten hectares of state-owned forests will be dedicated to biodiversity protection. This decision doubles the area of state-owned forests for which Romania is committing to a priority biodiversity protection regime and marks significant progress in the development of public policies dedicated to nature conservation.”
At the same time, WWF Romania emphasizes that this first stage should not be regarded as the end of the designation process, but rather as the foundation for the development of a national network of Priority Areas for Biodiversity.
The success of this initiative will not be measured by the area included in the first Order, but by Romania’s ability to develop, by 2030, a network capable of ensuring ecological functionality at national level, through ecosystem representativeness, connectivity, and financial mechanisms that guarantee its long-term viability.
In WWF Romania’s view, achieving this objective depends on meeting three essential conditions:
- establishing functional and predictable financial mechanisms that fairly compensate owners and administrators affected by restrictions imposed in the public interest and support local communities;
- reviewing and strengthening the designation methodology, so that the process is scientifically grounded, adapted to the national context, and applied in a consistent and predictable manner;
- developing a balanced and functional ecological network that proportionally pursues the representativeness of all ecosystems and their connectivity, focusing not merely on formally achieving a percentage target, but on the ecological functionality of the network as a whole.
According to preliminary assessments carried out by WWF Romania, forest habitats and land with forest vegetation already account for more than 70% of the areas proposed for this first stage of designation.
As the process continues, it is important for the national network to become more representative of all Romania’s natural ecosystems by including, to a greater extent, aquatic ecosystems and riparian areas, which form “green-blue corridors”, as well as silvopastoral landscapes of high conservation value, so that the network reflects the diversity of Romania’s natural heritage as accurately as possible.
WWF-Romania reaffirms its willingness to continue contributing, through dialogue and technical expertise, to strengthening this process, so that by 2030 Romania develops a credible, representative, functional and sustainable network of Priority Areas for Biodiversity, capable of conserving biodiversity and the ecosystem services on which communities and the economy depend in the long term.