Timber with no papers is still being transported and a smaller volume of timber than in reality is registered officially. Greenpeace Romania sent a complaint in this case to the Prosecution (DIICOT), Forest Guard in Vâlcea county and to the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests.
The team of Greenpeace Romania activists made a research during 17-18 November 2016 regarding the timber transport in Gureni village, Pestisani commune, Gorj county. Here there are currently four timber processing and transport companies.
The team monitored and documented in those two days the timber transports from the forest in the north of the village, as well as from other forests in the area. By using the Inspectorul Padurii app, the legality of the transports was verified at least two times for each timber transporting vehicle, therefore taking into account also the eventual problems of lack of GSM signal for registering the transports into the SUMAL = the Wood Tracking System under the EUTR, which is at the basis of Inspectorul Padurii app.
Consequently, in the monitoring interval, 35 illegal transports were identified, meaning transports without approvals, as well as vehicles that had an approval paper for a significantly smaller amount of timber than the one transported in reality. The illegal timber monitored was estimated at 319 cubic meters, of about 25,000 euro. Greenpeace Romania sent a complaint for this case to the Prosecutor, the Forest Guard in Vâlcea county and to the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests.
Just over a week after we made this public, the Forest Guard released the first results of the investigation it started in the county: over 1000 cubic meters of confiscated timber and fines of about 71,000 euro, following our complaint.
These first results of the Vâlcea county Forest Guard is a clue of the gravity of the situation in Romanian forests and continue to underline the urgent need of ample inspections as well giving substantial sanctions that would discourage the phenomena. Also collaboration is needed between the respective institutions that inspect and give fines.
On Friday, December 9th, the ministry of environment released a new tool in the line of fighting illegal logging and improving transparency: www.inspectorulpadurii.ro, a website using satellite imagery, where anyone can see logging authorizations, loading points in GPS coordinates, check permits for transports across the country. It also provides radar images for when the weather is bad and satellite only doesn’t help much.
The website also has multiple layers, such as maps of virgin forests, core areas of protected areas, so anyone can check if logging is happening where it shouldn’t be allowed.