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Getting legal personality for protected areas postponed for 2009

The National Forests Corporation - Romsilva has to postpone, for 2009, a project for getting legal personality for the national parks and the protected areas under its management, said, for Agerpres, Romsilva general manager Dorel Oros.

'The initiative of Romsilva to get legal personality for the natural parks and the protected areas under its management was repelled by the Public Finance Ministry. We have tried new variants, but taking into account that the electoral campaign is in full swing, and the ministries are working at a slow speed, I believe it is harder to promote a project and make lobby for it. But we will resume in Jan our attempt to give legal personality for the protected areas, ' said Oros.

Getting legal personality for the protected areas is necessary for drawing European funding for the environment.

Oros underlined that for the projects for the national parks and the trout breeding farms to be eligible also for 2009, ways have already been discussed to access European funds next year as well.

'The money coming from European funds will not be lost. It can be used also in 2009,' said Oros.

Romsilva is managing 22 parks and protected areas, employing 327 people, with the sums spent annually exceeding 2.2 million euros.

Romilsva has submitted this year to the Ministry of Environment 19 projects for getting non-returnable sums for protected areas, of which only 14 have been accepted, worth a total of 18 million lei.

Protected area are currently put under much pressure, much of it for return of the forests in the national parks. According to Romsilva,, up until now, 30 percent of the forests returned to their former owners are from national parks and protected areas.

The first national park in Romania was Retezat Park, set up in 1935. The total area of the biosphere reserves, national and natural parks in Romania stands at 1,203,340 ha, representing 5.04 percent of the territory of the country.

 

Sursa: http://www.rompress.ro

Tags: protected areas romsilva parks national legal getting personality