17. Challenges and Innovations to Sustainable Forest Management in Romania: Virgin Forests as Heritage

Protection of forest cover has a primary importance in conserving natural heritage, as well as sustaining other forms of life and land use. As argued in our previous research, sustainable forest management (SFM) is therefore supported by the necessity to preserve, value, and develop forest ecosystem services and the total economic value of forests, as part of a country’s natural heritage. This chapter will emphasize the  role of virgin forests in Romania, as a part of cultural heritage. Our approach is motivated by the need to protect and increase awareness of the significant heritage represented by the virgin forest in Romania. We start by highlighting some of the most important current developments concerning forests in the European Union (EU) and Romania. In this respect, we analyze the ranking of European countries, including Romania, with regard to their share of forestry areas across Europe. In Romania, what stands out is the peculiar increase of forest areas in the last decade, which can be explained by the changes in methodology used for classification and data gathering, due to the new Forestry Code. The next section of our chapter is dedicated to the importance of virgin forests as natural heritage sites. These are mostly represented by natural beech forests located in several remote counties. The value of Romanian virgin forest is proven by the current ongoing nomination process to include them in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List. Romania’s virgin forests are a national, European and global heritage—so the task of protecting this natural heritage should not be left solely to the private forest owners. It is required to have the intervention of the state and efforts by public authorities to continue having and sustainably manage these forests. The impulse for protection of such forests came from NGO and activists in biodiversity protection, foresters etc.