The banning of wood export and re-export and of general tree felling on Moldova’s territory will reduce the élan of illegal cutting by at least 50%. An institutional reform is needed in the forest sector, namely to restructure the Forest Agency “Moldsilva”, Minister of Environment Valeriu Munteanu said in the public debate “What do several thousand hectares of forests prepared for cutting mean for the deforested Republic of Moldova?”, which was staged by IPN News Agency in partnership with Radio Moldova. The minister considers such actions will stabilize the situation in the forest sector of Moldova.
According to the minister, there are 24 companies managed by the Agency, which have a lot of chiefs and no wood traceability system. Creating one state-owned enterprise with one account is a solution. “This should be an enterprise with one chief accountant. The sale of wood in cash must be limited and functional electronic systems should exist. We will impose these systems and they should be used,” stated Valeriu Munteanu.
He also said that the regulations adopted in 2008 protect those who rent wooded areas, not yet those who lease these out, which is the state. “This opened Pandora’s box. Last October I put forward an initiative to annul these regulations. It is very hard, but we will make effort for this bill to be submitted to the Government in 1-2 weeks and to be passed. This leasing out and the relations developed based on these regulations should be stopped,” said Valeriu Munteanu, noting that there are about 600 leases, most of which are valid for 50 years, and these should be regulated.
The minister said that at the beginning of this year he signed a draft Government decision by which the export and re-export of wood are banned until the end of 2020. “This will definitely discourage tree felling now that the exports will be banned. They exported wood and logs and not only mature wood. Very young trees were exported to be used as poles for supporting vine,” stated Valeriu Munteanu. He added that after this draft decision was signed, a number of exporters submitted complaints, saying they signed contracts for the supply of wood to a number of states.
The March 2 discussions form part of a series of public debates organized by IPN News Agency in co-production with Radio Moldova, with support from the German foundation “Hanns Seidel”.
