The state sustains losses to the value of over 1 billion lei by leasing wooded areas without taking into account the real value of the ecological goods and services, in the long term, for each hectare removed from the national forest stock. Such conclusions were reached by experts of the Ecologist Movement of Moldova. The organization’s chairman Alecu Renita, in a news conference at IPN, said that several thousand hectares of forests over the last few years have been cut with the aim of erecting houses on them, which is in breach of the leasing regulations.

According to Alecu Renita, the current forest management model set in 2001-2009 is based on swindling schemes. In the 24 forest companies of Moldova, one fourth of the forests were cut for the purpose of leasing out the areas so that these could be later privatized. If the trends continue, in 10-15 years Moldova will remain without wooded areas.

The head of the Ecologist Movement noted that a large part of those who built houses in the forest sector got the land at a rental of 4,000 lei per hectare, but some pay no rental at all. The houses built in forests must be demolished, while the tax per hectare of leased forest should be at least 125,000-150,000 lei. The money collected from these taxes could be used exclusively for planting new forests.

Alecu Renita added that according to the latest data of the State Forestry Agency “Moldsilva”, about 9,000 hectares of forests are leased out, but no transparency is ensured in this process. Most of the leased forests are located in the municipality of Chisinau. In some of them, there were erected houses that are protected by guards who ban access to the territory, arguing the ownership right was given for a period of 49 years.