Inspectors from the Court of Accounts say 1.6 cubic meters of wood were stolen in Romania in the last 3 years, and the stolen amounts as reflected by official figures is far from reality, according to hotnews.ro.

Most of the stolen amount was recorded in 2013 – 925,000 cubic meters of wood. Illegal forest cutting is masked by saying the trees were damaged anyway, and needed to be cut. After the trees are cut, the former forest areas usually become agriculture areas, or pastures. Romania had 6.3 million hectares of forest, or some 27% of the country’s territory end-2013, below the EU average of 32%.

The state owns some 3.3 million hectares of this forest, about half the amount it had in 1990. The reduction came after forest retrocessions. But the retrocession law was created step by step, were confusing and lacked vision, according to inspectors.

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editor@romania-insider.com