Romania

Abstract

In Romania 30% of the land area is covered with forests. The main forest types are beech, spruce, fir, mixtures of beech with conifers or broadleaves. Until 1991, the entire national forest area was under state ownership. However, after 1990 forest restitution law allowed the distribution of forests among different types of ownership. Nevertheless, the state still holds 53% of forests and is responsible for its management. The central authority for forestry in Romania is the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MECC). The ministry elaborates policies, strategies and programs for the development of forests, forestry and all legislative forestry regulations, using information derived from a forest management planning system implemented since 1948. However, despite providing the official statistics, the information collected under the forest management system was insufficient. Therefore, in 2006, a sample-based forest inventory system was designed. A continuous forest inventory with a 5-year cycle was implemented in 2008, and the second cycle of the Romanian National Forest Inventory (NFI) started in 2013. Due to the recent implementation of the Romanian NFI and the lack of growth models, no predictions have yet been made. However, efforts are now underway to develop the first growth models. For the time being, allowable cuts are defined every 10-years based on forest management plans which, in turn, are based on forest growth methods by age class and normalization of the size and structure of the production forests.