The chronic lack of significant funding has been the single most important element influencing the Romanian forest sector during the past 30 years.
Its effects can be seen seen in the lack of cadastre and therefore improper ownership and management over almost half a million ha of forest land, or in the obsolete harvesting equipment generating low efficiency while impacting negatively on the environment, or in the lack of biomass-based CHPs that could provide green energy equivalent to one or two nuclear reactors, as well as in the depopulation of the sector which faces increased hardships in finding and keeping skilled personnel.
Recognising the dire need for funding of sizeable projects, and benchmarking with what the European Investment Bank has been financing in other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, our team has initiated and co-organised a meaningful event that brought together EIB officials from Luxembourg and Bucharest with some of the most important stakeholders of the Romanian forest sector: owners, managers, investors, harvesting and wood processing industry, machine manufacturers, NGOs and associations.
Additional to the general funding mechanisms enabled by the EU bank, concrete examples of what and how is being financed were given during a lucrative Q&A session, that helped the Romanian participants picture the possibilities for further developing their business.
Special thanks to AIL Prolemn, the Romanian Association of the Wood Industry , who co-organised and hosted the event!
This book is a call for collective and integrated action to global leaders, investors, companies, scientists, governments, nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations, funding agencies and the society at large to put Romania’s forests on a sustainable path. This vision is put forward by Romanian and international experts whose exceptional work is pivotal in aiding our understanding of how the circular-bioeconomy transformation can unfold. This volume contains contributions from authors with diverse backgrounds: academics, practitioners, business people, and NGO representatives. It offers a variety of perspectives on the potential challenges and opportunities that a circular-bioeconomy may bring about. It presents a forward-looking, fact-based approach, rooted in science and firsthand experience. It presents the plan B for Romania’s forests and society – the plan for a circular-bioeconomy.
With the insightful contribution of Marc Palahi (EFI), who wrote the introduction to the book.
Endorsed by HRH Charles, Prince of Wales, who wrote the Foreword to the book.
Book available here .
Our Managing Director, Daniel Paul Dima was one initiators of this meaningful project, and one of the co-editors & co-authors of the book.