As florestas da Europa Central desaparecem às mãos de um máfia euro-austríaca bilionária

 

REPORT INVESTIGATION | ILLEGAL LOGGING IN EASTERN EUROPE

Como a máfia da madeira está a destruir a última floresta primitiva da Europa, a Amazónia da Europa: os Montes Cárpatos.


Mapa extraído de Network of Carpathian, ilustra las grandes llanuras y su pertenencia estatal.



Part I: The Romanian Eldorado

Eastern Europe hosts vast areas of virgin forest which could play a vital role in the battle against the climate crisis, yet they are being mercilessly torn down by a multi-billion euro Austrian-owned industry and a mafia-like system that stretches all the way from Romania to Ukraine. 

Published on 3 September 2020 

Johannes Kaiser, Christoph Lehermayr, Sebastian Reinhart - Addendum (Vienna)
Translated by Paula Kirby

260 million fallen trees

Satellite photos of primeval forest in the Maramureș region in 2017 and 2011.

With the aid of satellite images, Global Forest Watch has calculated that 317,000 hectares of Romanian forest were lost to logging between 2001 and 2017. That’s the equivalent of 444,000 football pitches or twice the size of the Austrian federal state of Vorarlberg. Half of these trees were in national parks or conservation areas and were hundreds of years old. Experts from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a US NGO, investigate and expose the predatory exploitation of nature throughout the world.


“Whether it’s in America, Asia or Africa, people are appalled at the way our planet is being destroyed. But while the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest has been horrifying people for years, hardly anyone realises that Europe contains remnants of virgin forests that are just as important. The fact that the majority of these are on our doorstep, in the Carpathians, and are under threat remains an untold story,” says the EIA’s David Gehl. The EIA reports accuse Schweighofer of having been the “biggest receiver of illegal timber” and having “lied about the source of its products for more than ten years”.