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Romania: Illegal logging in Carpathia

September 3, 2014

In the Romanian region of Carpathia, centuries-old trees are being logged illegally. Over the past decade, about 3,000 hectares of ancient forest have disappeared.

https://p.dw.com/p/1D69i

Even in the famous national parks such as Maramures Park in northern Romania, enormous tracts of land have been logged bare. The lumber is sold for industrial use. Corrupt officials work closely with the logging mafia and the illegal loggers operate with near impunity. Large wood-processing enterprises in the region claim they careful to ensure that all the timber they use has been legally harvested. But conservationists are skeptical of this claim. They argue that the wood-processing industry’s negligence in monitoring the source of the wood they use is what allows illegal logging to thrive.