Private owners of forests in protected natural areas or other areas with such protection, who cannot use wood mass, will receive compensations totaling 191 million lei this year.

On Wednesday, the government approved a resolution on methodical rules for assigning, using and controlling compensation. These compensations represent the cost of production that owners do not collect due to restrictions, Agerpres reports.

“Compensations are provided for forest areas that are included in functional types T1 and T2. More precisely, T1 represents forests created in zones of strict or comprehensive protection of nature reserves, scientific reserves, virgin forests and quasi-virgin forests, natural reserves that preserve special genetic resources, natural objects of UNESCO world heritage. Basically, felling is strictly prohibited in these territories. T2 are forests with special protective functions, in which the harvesting of wood mass is significantly reduced, so the forest ecosystem will not suffer from the imposed restrictions,” says the message sent by the Government.

The scheme runs from 2024 to 2027 inclusive, and the cost for the entire period is 998 million lei, financed from the state budget through a budget approved for this purpose by the Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests.

The area for which compensation will be provided is estimated at 430,000 hectares, of which 61,000 hectares belong to functional type T1, and 369,000 hectares to T2.

In 2024, compensation for a hectare of T1 is about 745 lei/year/ha, and for T2 – 365 lei/year/ha. The estimated budget of the scheme for 2024 is 191 million lei. The estimated number of beneficiaries is more than 1300 people. The draft state aid scheme has been notified to the European Commission.

The scheme applies to owners, individuals and legal entities, as well as their associations, administrative-territorial units of the state and private forest fund, who own forests subject to relevant environmental restrictions, the Government reports.