A matter of facts, rebels and leaked documents: Competing Romania illegal logging fact-finding missions advance amid rumours EU infringement could be dropped
Article supported by an IJ4EU grant for independent reporting
by Crina-Gabriela Boroş
(Photo: Clearcut in Natura 2000 site from where FSC-certified wood is being exploited in Fagaras mountains, Romania, May 16 2023. Clearcuts are illegal in Natura 2000 sites. Copyrighted - all rights reserved.)
‘These guys are approving logging without any idea whether that logging would damage a key habitat or a species!’
This is the reason environmental activists quote when asked why they’re winning court cases against public authorities permitting logging in Natura 2000 sites in Romania. Yet, despite EU infringements and complaints, saws are louder than birds in protected forests. In a pre-European Parliamentary election year, are current facts sufficient for the EU to take Romania to the European Court of Justice?
Just days ago, a European Parliament Petition (PETI) delegation visited Romania following an illegal logging complaint, as well as a list of other habitat destruction complaints that have forest destruction as common denominator. Delegates chose a press-proofed route to witness that “everything was well and under control” in Romania’s forests, as Environment Minister Barna Tánczos would tell them in his welcoming speech.
Stopped from witnessing what PETI does, we accompanied rebel MEPs and environmental activists to allegedly protected sites to observe “unfolding crime” and reveal a catalogue of forest management irregularities.
LORDS OF TIMBER is a project supported by an IJ4EU grant for independent reporting, managed by the European Journalism Centre and the International Press Institute. This is one article in a series exposing aspects tied to EU’s “famous” “environmental” infringement.
Notorious
“Romania faces several challenges with respect to the implementation of the nature protection Directives”, an EU Environment Commission (DG ENVI) official said just a few weeks ago, “but this is the famous one!”. She means the illegal logging matter raised by the Commission.
EU’s infringements database is, in fact, chokablok with environmental charges against Romania, like pus leaking from a wound that won’t heal.
Read the article in full on PRESSHub - https://presshub.ro/a-matter-of-facts-rebels-and-leaked-documents-competing-romania-illegal-logging-fact-finding-missions-advance-amid-rumours-ue-infrigment-could-be-dropped-273480/
LORDS OF TIMBER is a project supported by an IJ4EU grant for independent reporting, managed by the European Journalism Centre and the International Press Institute. This is one article in a series exposing aspects tied to EU’s “famous” “environmental” infringement.