The European Commission said on Tuesday that it has approved a 100 million euro Romanian scheme to support the regeneration of damaged forests.
The scheme aims to support forest owners to advance forest regeneration in areas affected by fires, adverse climatic events, pest infestations and catastrophic events, the EU’s executive body said in a press release.
The aid scheme will be funded through the Recovery and Resilience Facility following the Commission’s positive assessment of the Romanian Recovery and Resilience Plan and its adoption by Council.
The support will take the form of direct grants to private and public forest owners, as well as their associations.
The scheme will run until June 30, 2026, the Commission said.
Romania is set to receive about 29 billion euro in total under the facility, consisting of 14.2 billion euro in grants and 14.9 billion euro in loans.
More than half of all timber logged in Romania is illegal, which means it is taken from areas which are supposed to be protected, or harvested in such huge quantities that quotas are breached and entire forests simply disappear.
Romania has 6,249 million hectares of forest, representing 26.3 percent of its territory.
Romania to plant thousands of hectares of forests as part of EU Green Deal-PM
