International calls to protect Romanian and Ukrainian forests
13 November 2024
Eastern European forests are currently being severely degraded, putting their unique biodiversity and climate at risk. From 2010-2019, the Eastern European carbon sink showed a 52% decrease of overall carbon uptake from land use sectors, with logging playing an important role. Protected areas, important species and habitats not yet under protection are commonly threatened by political projects that avoid obtaining any environmental permits and bypass public participation. But international pressure can help.
This is currently the case in Romania's Făgetul Clujului area, home to forests, marshes and grasslands rich with biodiversity and rare/endangered species. Without the required impact studies and permits, construction of roads, residential neighbourhoods and real estate developments has been planned in its habitats, facilitated by local authorities who have ignored their duty to assess the environmental devastation of these projects.
Romanian and international NGOs are calling on the Minister of Environment, Water and Forests to grant temporary protection to the area of Faget Sud – Colonia Faget and to speed up its official designation as a Natura 2000 site.
To support these national efforts, Romanian groups are also requesting international public pressure through a petition to designate the area as a protected site, and an open sign-on to public authorities to protect it.
The importance of such international public pressure cannot be overstated. For example, the efforts of a similar campaign in Ukraine, “Free Svydovets”, which worked to garner international attention for their campaign and obtained 25,000 signatures for their petition – a first in Ukraine – recently achieved a resounding victory to save Carpathian forests.
On 9 October 2024, a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court found in favour of the Ukrainian Free Svydovets Group which, along with “Environment-People-Law”, Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group, Bruno Manser Fonds and Longo Maï, campaigned against the “Svydovets” mega ski resort in the Ukrainian Carpathians. This ruling singled out failures concerning lack of public participation and environmental assessments, and overturned previous administrative decisions that had approved the 1,430-hectare project, which would have had devastating impacts on the region’s pristine landscape, old-growth forests and natural river courses.
Even so, in Ukraine as in Romania, the effort to build over forests while sidestepping environmental obligations continues. In Ukraine, the surrounding areas of Bystrytsia and Turbat remain at risk from similar development projects. As Oreste del Sol of the Free Svydovets Group stated, “Continued international support is essential to ensure that these unique and biodiverse areas are protected for future generations.”
You can show support for the ongoing efforts to protect forests in Romania and Ukraine. For Romania, click above to sign the petition, or contact Alina Chiriac here to add your organisation’s support to the letter to Romania’s Ministry of Environment. Ukrainian groups are currently working on the creation of a nature reserve to protect Svydovets forever; reach out to Free Svydovets or free.svydovets@gmail.com for more info.
Image credit: Cristian Bortes / Wikimedia Commons
Categories: News, Partner Voices, European forests