Afforestation in Romania: Realities and Perspectives

Romania's forest cover is at this time below, but quite close to the European average. Despite that, recent forestry activities tend to be more oriented towards forest exploitation and not to increase the national forested area. The general public perception is that afforestation activities are limited only to NGO’s projects and media actions and numerous reports and statements made by some of these organizations are rather sensational and confusing. This paper tries to cast more light on this controversial issue, presenting accurate data and considering the whole context of afforestation from the history of afforestation activities in Romania to the recent statements and reports submitted by the government agencies involved in these particular issues. The necessity and opportunity of afforestation is also substantiated from the perspective of reintroduction into production of marginal and degraded land. An analysis of the situation of funding through the National Rural Development Programme (2007-2013) measures is performed and possible future directions regarding afforestation programmes are discussed.