The National Forestry Strategy 2030, which is part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), was presented in Romania on Monday. According to Environment Minister Tanczos Barna, the strategy comes with a new approach in terms of control and restrictions and provides for raising the forested areas by 56 thousand hectares until the year 2026. The national forestry strategy builds a new future for Romania's forests; the minister went on to say. In his opinion, the new strategy lays emphasis on increasing the responsibility of the owners, on protection and biodiversity and also provides for subsidies to owners whose forests are in the protection area.
Tanczos Barna: The strategy comes with a new approach in terms of control and restrictions so that the increased responsibility of the owners may lead to a better implementation of this strategy. At the same time the forest's role of protection, of biodiversity, this social service the forests provide to the entire community, continues to be very, very important. So we are going to raise the surface of forests and strictly protect them but the sate must also provide subsidies and offer support to owners whose forests are in the protection areas.
The aforementioned strategy will have to be endorsed by the government until September 30th. Then a new legislation is needed. According to Barna, Parliament must endorse a new forestry code in 2023. And because the forestry strategy has been included in the National Plan of Recovery and Resilience, its most important objectives will benefit from EU funds.
The forestry strategy comes after 400 thousand hectares of farmland in 34 Romanian counties have been affected by drought this year and many Romanian farmers want to build their own irrigation systems.
Under the latest legislative amendments, farmers are allowed to build local irrigation systems. The state pledges to cover 50% of the price of electricity used by such local irrigation systems while the water used in the process is free of charge.
The surface affected by wildfires fueled by the drought has this year been 10 times higher than the average of the past 15 years. The former chief of the Environment Guard, Octavian Berceanu, has cautioned that the ashes will eventually affect the urban areas, which presently lack any forest barriers. According to the European information system, roughly 150 thousand hectares of land have been destroyed by fire in Romania this year as compared to 15 thousand between 2006 and 2021. With 0.63% of its surface affected by fire, Romania comes second at EU level after Portugal and is followed by Spain and Croatia.