Today, we sent our proposals regarding the Forestry Code draft law to the Parliament and the Ministry of Environment. The draft law, initiated by the Government, is currently under parliamentary debate in the Chamber of Deputies. It received a favorable opinion from the Economic and Social Council and was later adopted by the Senate with numerous amendments.
The executive's initiative comes in the context of the reforms committed to through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which also include the adoption of a legislative package aimed at increasing the clarity and efficiency of mechanisms to fight illegal logging and improving forest management.
To achieve this objective, the reform of the system to fight illegal harvesting must follow the strategic directions of action clearly outlined in the National Strategy for Forests for 2030, starting with changing the methods of measuring timber.
Here are some strategic directions of action that require more clarity in the New Forestry Code:
- Facilitating access to forest resources for businesses in specific sectors of the forestry industry, based on their contribution to the socioeconomic development of local communities relative to the consumed timber volume. Quantifying the contribution of vertical value chains relative to the consumed forest resource. More clarity is needed regarding the sustainable use of timber resources obtained from forests to support sustainable development of local communities.
- The main coordinates of timber traceability and the first market placement in order to make sense of the simplicity-transparency-efficiency The SUMAL architecture should target the traceability of timber materials and, distinctly, the traceability of raw timber assortments throughout the entire custody chain, up to their first transformation through processing. The state should not consider the act of estimating timber quantity as a management document.
- Limiting the use of invasive exotic tree species in reforestation compositions for lands outside the national forestry fund (except for the cases where their use is regulated by the Law on reforestation of degraded lands).
- The artificial fragmentation of the national forestry fund associated with non-uniform management, by continuing the chaotic restitution system, which can cause significant economic, social, and ecological harm. The transfer of lands included in the national forestry fund from its public state ownership to its private ownership should be exempted if they belonged to the state's public domain before March 6, 1945.
- Clear specification of the mechanisms and funding sources that will be established to ensure compensations for landowners subject to imposed restrictions.
Considering the complexity of the economic, social, and environmental implications of the new Forestry Code project, we hope that our proposals will be taken into account. Romania has now a historic opportunity that it shouldn’t miss.