Nature NGO to reforest 100 hectares in Romania’s Făgăraș Mountains

Fundația Conservation Carpathia (FCC) will replant this spring 100 hectares of areas destroyed by ample exploitation or incidental felling in the Făgăraș Mountains.

FCC and Carpathia Forestry Association have started the planting of 435,000 saplings of spruce, European beech, and fir in four ecological reconstruction areas: Groapele, impacted by felling and a fire, Dobroneagu, Valea Dâmboviței and Lerești. Alongside the watercourse on Valea Doamnei, FCC also planted 750 saplings of alder, an important species in stabilizing the banks.

The saplings come from the Carpathia nurseries or have been purchased from specialized producers in the area.

It takes a minimum of seven years of work to see a new forest from the seed phase to the stage where it is strong enough, FCC explained. It takes two-three years to see the saplings grow. Another four to five years of post-planting care are needed.

These areas need active support to return to their natural balance. The ecological reconstruction activities facilitate or imitate natural processes as much as possible, and also take into account future climate changes. But rebuilding the entire ecosystem after a major imbalance is impossible, the foundation said.

In ten years of working on ecological reconstruction, FCC has planted beech, spruce, fir, alder, European ash, elm, sycamore, sorb tree and yew. It will also plant bog pine, juniper, and stone pine as part of the Life Carpathia project.

The project is carried out with financial support from the European Commission in the project Creation of a Wilderness Reserve in the Southern Carpathian Mountains, Romania (LIFE18 NAT/RO/001082).

Since 2009, Conservation Carpathia has worked to save from exploitation 27,000 hectares of forests and alpine pastures in the southeastern part of the Southern Carpathians and has rebuilt forests on 1,157 hectares, it said.

(Photo: Michiel van Noppen, courtesy of Conservation Carpathia)