Environment minister Tanczos Barna said last Friday, November 11, that preparations are being made for a large-scale afforestation campaign in Romania. The program will be financed with EUR 500 million from the EU-funded Recovery and Resilience Facility.

“We are preparing the most extensive afforestation campaign in Romania. We’ll soon launch the project submission session for planting over 56,000 hectares of forests,” Tanczos Barna said, quoted by News.ro.

The minister explained that to benefit from financing, land owners must create forest bodies of at least 0.5 hectares or forest strips protecting arable land with an area of at least 0.1 hectares.

The afforestation must be carried out in accordance with a project plan approved by the Romanian Forest Guard, which details the species of trees and shrubs to be planted, as well as the density of plantations.

According to the same source, in addition to funding for the planting, the owners of the new forest areas will receive EUR 456 per year for each hectare of established forest for 20 years.

irina.marica@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Eduard Goricev | Dreamstime.com)