Timber Risk Score: 39 / 100 in 2017. The Timber Legality Risk Assessment contains an evaluation of the risk of illegality in Romania for five categories and 21 sub-categories of law. We found:
- Specified risk for 11 sub-categories.
- Low risk for 7 sub-categories.
- No legal requirements for 3 sub-categories.
This page provides an overview of the legality risks related to timber produced in Romania.
Forests cover about 30% of Romania (FAO, 2015). 65% of this is publicly owned, either at the national level (50%) or lower administrative level (15%), while the remainder (35%) is privately owned.
Several legality risks are present in Romanian timber supply chains, irrespective of whether they are publicly or privately owned. The contravention of applicable laws and regulations is widespread and relates to the abuse of harvesting rights, destructive harvesting practices and weak controls for timber transportation.
Independent assessments have estimated that timber harvested in Romania has a high risk of illegality (EIA, 2015). Companies sourcing timber from Romania should take care to ensure the extensive risks identified are not present in their supply chains, or have been sufficiently mitigated.
This risk assessment was prepared between 2014-2018 according to the FSC-STD-40-005. The approved FSC Risk Assessment can be downloaded in the FSC Document Centre. ONLY Risk Assessments that have been formally reviewed and approved by FSC can be used by an FSC candidate or certified companies in risk assessments and will meet the FSC standards without further verification.
View this page in Hungarian, Romanian
There are currently no armed conflicts in Romania according to the Council on Foreign Relations' Global Conflict Tracker
FSC Certified Forest Area: 2,836,078 hectares (4 December 2019).
Information Gathering
Timber sources
- Find out the different sources of legal timber
- Determine which source type your timber comes from
|
Timber source type |
Description of source type |
|---|---|
|
Timber from natural production forests |
Timber from natural production forests, that may be either publicly or privately owned. The following documents are required:
|
|
Timber from plantations |
Timber from privately owned and managed plantations. A Harvesting permit and Volume Estimation Document (APV) are required. |
| Timber from forest farmlands | Timber from private and publicly owed farmland where forests have regenerated with a canopy cover of less than 0.4%. A Volume Estimation Document (APV) is required. |
| Timber from conservation forests |
Timber from natural conservation forests – both publicly and privately owned. The following documents are required:
Limited source - harvest restricted to a maximum of 10% of volume/decade. |
Risk Assessment
Risk assessment summary
|
Legal rights to harvest |
|
Taxes and fees |
|
|
Timber harvesting activities |
|
|
Third parties' rights
|
|
Trade and transport |
|
Risk Mitigation
Mitigate the risks in your supply chain
Learn which actions we recommended to mitigate the risks associated with the timber sources from Romania.
Source Certified Materials
NEPCon believes that third party certification (for example FSC and PEFC certification) can provide strong assurances of the legality of the products they cover. Companies seeking to mitigate the risks of sourcing illegal timber should seek to purchase third party certified materials wherever possible.
While the European Timber Regulation does not include an automatic “green lane” for certified products, it does recognise the value of certification as a tool for risk assessment and mitigation. The European Commission says that companies “may rate credibly certified products as having negligible risk of being illegal, i.e. suitable for placing on the market with no further risk mitigation measures, provided that the rest of the information gathered and the replies to the risk assessment questions do not contradict such a conclusion.”
For more information on using certified materials in your due diligence, including how to assess whether a certification system meets EUTR requirements, see the page on Certification and Due Diligence.
Mitigation recommendations
There are five recommended actions to mitigate the risks associated with the timber sources from Romania:
1. Fully map your supply chains
- Our supply chain mapping tool can help you do this.
2. Obtain and verify documents
- Inheritance certificate, property title, sale contract
- Cross-check volumes and assortments in SUMAL (the Integrated Information System for Timber Tracking).
- Ensure your supplier has the Wood Tracking Application - check the online code and its validity in order to verify threshold to be harvested is not exceeded.
- Inventories for Volume Estimation Document (VED, or APV in Romanian). Compare the estimation volume from the APV with the harvesting result.
- Records of training of staff for harvesting requirements.
- Records of forest harvesting controls during and after the harvest.
- Environmental permit.
- Forest Management Plan, must include measures to ensure the conservation status of the protected area (if applicable).
- Proof of notification of custodian of protected areas (if applicable) and their approval of the harvest plan and Volume Estimation Document (VED).
- Periodic labour control report (Conducted by the Labour Inspectorate and/or Forest district based on control visits).
- Employment contracts.
- Shipment documents (delivery documents) and codes regarding wood origin and destination (Provided through Wood Tracking System). Delivery document shall confirm that data and time corresponding to the logging area and landing areas
- Documents regarding the inclusion of the road tolling in the contract of wood procurement
- Evidence that a Due Diligence System is in place in accordance with the EU Timber Regulation No. 995/2010 (EUTR)
3. Consult stakeholders
- Confirm that working conditions meet legal requirements by speaking to staff
- Confirm that working conditions meet legal requirements by speaking to public authorities in charge of monitoring
- Confirm that working conditions meet legal requirements and that there are no substantial conflicts by speaking to union representatives
4. Carry out on-site verification
- Check logging area boundaries to verify harvesting has taken place within boundaries
- Check that the harvest design for each site contains harvest technology, location of forest roads, skidding trails and primary log yard
- Check that each harvest site has a billboard stating the location (FME, FMU, compartment, number of harvest site), the harvest permit number, contractor and harvest period in order to provide publicly available information necessary for public and third parties to identify proper implementation of harvesting activities
- Check that FME staff demonstrate knowledge of the location of protected areas in the managed FMUs, protection objectives and protective measures in the protected area management plan (if applicable)
- Check that protected area management measures are respected in the field
- Review the environmental permit and harvesting technology document and verify they are complied with in the field
5. Conduct targeted timber testing
- Conduct timber testing on samples of purchasd material to verify the species or origin of timber, where appropriate