Romanian NGO claims to have tracked an illegal timber shipment going to Schweighofer's plant in Sebes

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AgentGreen/RS
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A Romanian environmental NGO, Agent Green, claims that it has tracked an illegal timber shipment coming from Romania's Retezat Forest National Park and going to Schweighofer's plant in Sebes. Representatives of the NGO have filmed the alleged timber truck all the way from the forest up to the factory gates of Schweighofer's sawmill. Authorities confirmed that the shipment was illegal.

Retezat Forest National Park is a protected natural reservation; wood cutting is allowed only in the range of 10,000 cubic meters/per year and only to prevent insect infestation.

Agent Green investigated the logging activity in Retezat for the past 9 months, and at the beginning of this month presented this case to Schweighofer's representatives, at the company's headquarters in Vienna. The company has committed to refuse wood from Retezat, and all other national parks, and is ready to strengthen its traceability system to prove their decision.

''Our policy is clear. We refuse wood extracted from natural reservations. We know that they are a part of key habitats, essential for the conservation of thousand of species, which can be sheltered only in these areas. It is still a challenge for us to respect our commitments for harvesting permits from national reservations. We need Agent Green and the [Romanian] Environment Ministry to urgently come up with a mechanism which can allow us to be authentic in the ethics that we follow'' said Gerald Schweighofer to Agent Green.

Romania has deep-rooted problems with illegal logging: around 2 million cubic meters of wood is supposed to be illegally harvested every year. Authorities have implemented different systems of prevention, including sophisticated wood tracking systems. However, so far, these measures seem to have no effect.

Video of the alleged tracked timber shipment in Romanian (with English subtitles)

Source: Agent Green

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