The Prague Post - The fight to save 'sacred' Carpathian forests from loggers

EUR -
AED 4.298411
AFN 80.848329
ALL 97.660061
AMD 448.846241
ANG 2.09445
AOA 1073.146765
ARS 1490.94381
AUD 1.79484
AWG 2.109431
AZN 1.991025
BAM 1.956002
BBD 2.362943
BDT 142.480417
BGN 1.9561
BHD 0.441151
BIF 3488.059346
BMD 1.170281
BND 1.500255
BOB 8.086833
BRL 6.51998
BSD 1.170321
BTN 101.061412
BWP 16.313681
BYN 3.829995
BYR 22937.499063
BZD 2.350842
CAD 1.599709
CDF 3377.430105
CHF 0.932836
CLF 0.029081
CLP 1115.956442
CNY 8.397888
CNH 8.396634
COP 4722.585298
CRC 590.26081
CUC 1.170281
CUP 31.012435
CVE 110.273063
CZK 24.624578
DJF 208.191448
DKK 7.466448
DOP 70.637277
DZD 151.852654
EGP 57.451067
ERN 17.554208
ETB 162.356126
FJD 2.635826
FKP 0.867102
GBP 0.867734
GEL 3.171696
GGP 0.867102
GHS 12.200257
GIP 0.867102
GMD 83.678408
GNF 10153.742385
GTQ 8.981925
GYD 244.845224
HKD 9.186626
HNL 30.629155
HRK 7.537425
HTG 153.575822
HUF 399.280416
IDR 19089.850623
ILS 3.919825
IMP 0.867102
INR 101.146057
IQD 1533.057938
IRR 49283.4483
ISK 142.434345
JEP 0.867102
JMD 187.669334
JOD 0.829734
JPY 172.261202
KES 151.855558
KGS 102.340977
KHR 4690.483222
KMF 493.857789
KPW 1053.288792
KRW 1622.008808
KWD 0.357282
KYD 0.9753
KZT 624.43433
LAK 25239.600229
LBP 104859.602826
LKR 353.018827
LRD 234.644173
LSL 20.602623
LTL 3.455534
LVL 0.707891
LYD 6.340464
MAD 10.543471
MDL 19.848045
MGA 5180.533708
MKD 61.564501
MMK 2456.363932
MNT 4200.462756
MOP 9.462875
MRU 46.449785
MUR 53.235831
MVR 18.019336
MWK 2029.309063
MXN 21.832719
MYR 4.952046
MZN 74.850385
NAD 20.602623
NGN 1792.143945
NIO 43.063149
NOK 11.889056
NPR 161.698658
NZD 1.963426
OMR 0.449999
PAB 1.170321
PEN 4.167005
PGK 4.91936
PHP 66.610061
PKR 333.501434
PLN 4.257423
PYG 8899.650693
QAR 4.266812
RON 5.071414
RSD 117.208305
RUB 91.721498
RWF 1691.674279
SAR 4.390103
SBD 9.695886
SCR 17.333586
SDG 702.769843
SEK 11.214073
SGD 1.499521
SHP 0.919657
SLE 26.916275
SLL 24540.202914
SOS 668.868908
SRD 42.920017
STD 24222.444896
STN 24.502524
SVC 10.239749
SYP 15215.82151
SZL 20.609123
THB 37.719898
TJS 11.234957
TMT 4.107685
TND 3.427353
TOP 2.74092
TRY 47.308557
TTD 7.947819
TWD 34.43788
TZS 3042.729269
UAH 48.887674
UGX 4199.432633
USD 1.170281
UYU 47.254868
UZS 14749.519522
VES 136.88189
VND 30596.985357
VUV 138.992756
WST 3.085016
XAF 656.024585
XAG 0.030046
XAU 0.000345
XCD 3.162742
XCG 2.109217
XDR 0.81669
XOF 656.004963
XPF 119.331742
YER 281.978836
ZAR 20.578541
ZMK 10533.934167
ZMW 27.063788
ZWL 376.829864
  • CMSC

    0.0900

    22.314

    +0.4%

  • CMSD

    0.0250

    22.285

    +0.11%

  • RBGPF

    0.0000

    69.04

    0%

  • SCS

    0.0400

    10.74

    +0.37%

  • RELX

    0.0300

    53

    +0.06%

  • RIO

    -0.1400

    59.33

    -0.24%

  • GSK

    0.1300

    41.45

    +0.31%

  • NGG

    0.2700

    71.48

    +0.38%

  • BP

    0.1750

    30.4

    +0.58%

  • BTI

    0.7150

    48.215

    +1.48%

  • BCC

    0.7900

    91.02

    +0.87%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    13.13

    +0.15%

  • VOD

    0.0100

    9.85

    +0.1%

  • BCE

    -0.0600

    22.445

    -0.27%

  • RYCEF

    0.1000

    12

    +0.83%

  • AZN

    -0.1200

    73.71

    -0.16%

The fight to save 'sacred' Carpathian forests from loggers
The fight to save 'sacred' Carpathian forests from loggers / Photo: Ionut IORDACHESCU - AFP

The fight to save 'sacred' Carpathian forests from loggers

Vast gaps in the forest canopy are visible from above Romania's Carpathian mountains, while stumps studding the ground are reminders of the trees chopped into logs and piled beside dirt roads.

Text size:

Forest engineer Gabriel Oltean has fought against this intense, often illegal logging with cameras that broadcast live on YouTube the incessant passage of woodcutters' trucks.

He said he caused "a psychological shock" among locals at the gates of the legendary Transylvania region, which led to investigations and wood confiscations -- though no criminal convictions yet.

People like him are fighting for forests blanketing the 1,500-kilometre (900-mile) mountain range that spans eight nations and sits in a region that is supposed to be among the best preserved in the EU.

But in reality a lack of enforcement and vast profits for the taking mean the forests' destruction, which is leading to pressure in Romania, is still largely greeted with indifference in Poland.

"This forest should be sacred. We should be protecting such places," Greenpeace Poland spokesman Marek Jozefiak said in the village of Zatwarnica in the country's southeast.

"You see that hill? They've already logged it. Like 50 metres (160 feet) from a bear den," said Jozefiak, noting only some 150 brown bears are left in Poland.

One of Europe's "last remaining biodiversity havens", the forests covering the Carpathians house bison, lynx, wolves and wildcats, along with scores of bird species like the three-toed woodpecker or the Ural owl.

The old-growth forests of the mountain range are also important for mitigating climate change.

Worldwide, forests absorb a net amount of 7.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, or 1.5 times what the United States emits, according to a study published in 2021 in the journal Nature Climate Change.

But "on average a forest area of more than five football pitches is lost to wood extraction every single hour" in the Carpathians, Greenpeace said in a report last November.

- Lucrative business -

More than half of the area of the Carpathians is in Romania, with the range also running through Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine and to a lesser extent Hungary, Serbia, the Czech Republic as well as Austria.

On paper it's one of the most preserved regions in the EU, but only one to three percent of the forest is strictly protected in Poland, according to the Greenpeace report.

The state forestry agency, responsible for both protecting the forests and cutting the wood, owns the majority of forests.

Its revenue increased by 50 percent in 2022 year-on-year to 15.2 billion zlotys (3.4 billion euros), 90 percent of which comes from the sale of wood.

The agency is "trying to dig as much money as they can out of it", Jozefiak said.

In 2018, Europe's top court ruled that Poland's government broke the law by logging in Bialowieza, a UNESCO world heritage site that is Europe's largest surviving primeval forest.

Authorities have responded to accusations of illegal logging by planting new trees -- which activists have dismissed as failing to compensate for the ecological damage.

Instead, environmentalists would like to see more forests declared national parks for better protection.

Greenpeace is calling on the European Union to develop and fund an action plan to safeguard the mountain range.

"We want to brand the Carpathians, just like the Alps... The Carpathians should be famous too," Jozefiak said.

Poland has not created a single new national park in over two decades because of legislation according local authorities a veto.

Even in those that exist, exploitation is not prohibited.

In Stuposiany, a state forest division in the Carpathians that is curiously wedged into a national park, officials say protection is already high on the agenda.

"The timber harvesting process does not have a negative impact on the forest ecosystem," chief forester Ewa Tkacz told AFP, adding that "nature is very dear to us".

- 'Don't realise what we are losing' -

Still, concern for the mountains has spawned protests, including logging blockades organised by a citizens' initiative.

Andrzej Zbrozek, a biology teacher who lives deep in the woods, said the Carpathians "are becoming a farmland of sorts, subordinated to timber harvesting".

"It's hard for me to accept that the forests I've been wandering through my whole life are becoming much less valuable, thinned out," the 53-year-old told AFP against a backdrop of birdsong.

Zbrozek -- soft-spoken, with animated eyes, his long-hair tied back in a ponytail -- said he struggles to instil concern for the Carpathians in his students, who include the children of foresters, hunters and farmers.

"They're used to it. They don't see it, they aren't able to appreciate" the nature surrounding them, he said.

"We don't realise what we're losing," he added as he blamed logging for also worsening the effects of any floods.

Slovakia's share of the Carpathians -- second in size to Romania's -- has also come in for environmental concern.

Geographer Mikulas Huba said that while on paper forest cover exceeds 40 percent of Slovak territory, "these are no longer real forests" but often logging sites or bushes.

- Surveillance cameras, tracking app -

In eastern Romania, deep in the Carpathians in Ghimes-Faget commune, the forest engineer Oltean searched in vain for trees that he marked two years ago.

But the method -- still used to track illegal logging -- is not efficient with some markings simply fading over time or becoming covered by resin.

"If I couldn't find them (the marked trees), what can you expect of a forest guard inspector who is teleported here from another place to find problems and possible illegalities?" the 32-year-old asked.

While the forests were largely preserved under the regime of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who used them as hunting ground, the authorities have long struggled to stop the rampant illegal logging that took hold after his death in 1989.

Some 80 million cubic metres of timber were cut illegally between 1990 and 2011, according to an estimate by the Romanian Court of Auditors dating from 2013.

Currently, forests cover 6.6 million hectares, or a third of the country, while the timber industry is estimated to be worth nearly 10 billion euros, or 4.5 percent of the country's GDP, according to accounting giant PwC.

The cut wood is used as firewood, especially in rural areas, or exported for the international furniture and DIY markets.

While it is difficult to have exact figures, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates on the basis of spot checks that a third of the convoys carrying wood are illegal.

Alerted by activist groups, the European Commission launched an infringement procedure in early 2020, which could see Romania face financial sanctions.

To better track looters, a digital tool, called Sumal, was implemented in 2014 and has since been upgraded -- with former environment minister Barna Tanczos hailing it as "the most sophisticated system in Europe".

Carriers must upload photos showing the amount of timber leaving the forest into an app so that it can be checked with their loads when they reach the warehouses.

But criminal groups still often manage to circumvent these checks by organising several transports with a single authorisation notice.

Only a small part is confiscated: Last year, nearly 90,000 cubic metres of wood were seized, according to the environment ministry.

So the government decided to go further. In June, parliament passed a law to make cameras compulsory on forest roads. In 2024, the first 350 will be deployed.

- Corruption -

To be able to intercept suspects, software capable of alerting in real time would be needed, said Romania WWF expert Radu Melu.

"Otherwise the trucks pass by the video camera, the image is recorded and archived, but then deleted after a certain amount of time without anything happening," he said.

The government plans to implement a sophisticated surveillance system with satellite images, drones and planes flying over the areas -- an investment of 46 million euros financed by European funds.

For Oltean, too, only technology will make it possible to fight against logging.

Criminal groups often benefit from complicity within a corrupt forestry administration, as several resounding scandals have shown in recent years.

"It is clear to me that human involvement must be reduced," he said. "No matter how good a friend you are with the policeman that caught you, if your speed is recorded on radar, there's nothing you can do about it."

In his area of Ghimes, ranger Petre Oltean -- who is not related to Gabriel Oltean -- sees the fight against logging is gaining pace thanks to the mobilisation of "competent people" and the arrival of rangers who are "younger, with a different mentality".

But those who fight sometimes do so at the risk of their lives.

Attacks on activists and forest agents have been recorded, two of whom were killed in 2019.

burs-amj-anb/jza/jmm/giv

G.Kucera--TPP