Moldova has about 28,000 hectares of forest buffer strips, which is way below the standards. At least another 50,000 hectares would be needed to adequately protect farmland, and both the government and farmers need to team up to make it happen, urged members of the Ecological Society Biotica NGO during a press conference on Monday.

Vitalie Gulcă, environmental scientist, declared that for a sustainable future it is necessary to create forest buffers. Excessive exploitation of land, the deforestation of buffer strips and their lack on slopes, the lack of the simplest anti-erosion agrotechnical and phytotechnical measures on sloping lands are just some of the factors that have led to the acceleration of the erosion processes.

“If we make changes in the legislation and do like in Sweden, where the wildlife does not belong to anyone, but the hunter buys the right to hunt from the landowner, then the landowners will receive financial assistance from the hunters for this right and landowners, respectively, will have a vested interest in creating forest strips and maintaining wildlife populations at an optimal level. Thus, the wild fauna, regardless of whether they are hunting mammals, birds, insects - all these species will contribute to the creation of an ecological agriculture that will reduce the need to use different pesticides and other chemical products in agriculture”, said Vitalie Gulcă.
 
Vasile Mereuță, farmer, said that forest strips are very important for farmers. “If we are going to have 20-50 hectares of forest strips around each 100-hectare field, we will also have an ecological construction in the future. We don’t have to wait for the Ministry of the Environment to do it for us, we have to take more money out of our pockets. I belong to the category of people who spent their own money and created an ecological construction on the Nistru meadow. I urge people and economic agents to help us”, said the farmer.

Vasile Țânțar, mayor of Copceac village in Ștefan Vodă district, said that the village authorities planted almost 100 hectares of forest over the course of 12 years. On the territory of the village last year, 16 thousand young trees were planted on private land.