Prince Charles lobbies for the sustainable management of Romania’s forests

In a message sent to greenpeace.org, Prince Charles calls on the environment authorities and organisations in Romania to protect the last virgin forests in Europe.

He says that Europe has quite few areas of natural forests left, with many of them being in Romania and that they have been relatively neglected in the past years.

In Prince Charles’ view, Romania’s forests are an important, vital part of the domestic economy, of the national cultural identity and of the environment integrity and for that reason it’s crucial that these forests should be well preserved and administered.

The heir of the British Crown refers to an estimation that reveals that about 181,000 hectares of forests in Romania have come down or have been destroyed following legal or illegal exploitations during 2000-2011. The same study shows that almost half of the loss took place on protected sites and that over 31,000 cases of illegal deforestations occurred from 2009 to 2011, and 20,000 more case only in 2012. Prince Charles says that means 53 cases per day.

“I travelled through a part of Romania’s forests (…) across some of the most remarkable landscapes that I have ever seen,” the British royal heir agued, underlining that much more can be earned from the sustainable management of these extraordinary places instead through what can be obtained by their downfall for short-term benefits.