Balkans sound alarm over disappearing forests
BUCHAREST — Illegal logging and unregulated real estate projects are threatening the Balkans’ once abundant forests, home to more than half of Europe’s bears and to large wolf populations. To alert public opinion to the looming dangers, national parks in the region will rally this weekend to mark the International Day for Biological Diversity, set a decade ago by the UN General Assembly for May 22. Albania is one of the world’s countries worst hit by deforestation. Woodlands that covered 51 percent of its territory prior to 1990 have now receded to 25 percent, according to several environmental non-government organizations (NGOs) contacted by AFP. The Vlora region on Albania’s southern Adriatic coast is a prime example, where 102 hectares (252 acres) of forests were cleared to make room for illegal construction, according to the Albanian National Forest Association. Even Albania’s national parks such as the Lura, considered a gem of the Balkans with its vast expanse of pine, fir and beech trees, have not been spared by illegal loggers. While ten times more trees are felled illegally than legally, according to the national statistics institute, no one has so far been tried or convicted for the crime. Romania, meanwhile, still boasts 300,000 hectares of intact forest, the second-largest woodland expanse in Europe after that in Russia. But its national parks, too, are threatened. In Piatra Craiului Park in the Meridional Carpathians, nearly 300 hectares of forests were chopped down illegally between 2004 and 2007. Source: The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100523com3.html |
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