Moldovan government approved new mechanism for authorizing forestry works

Chisinau, 7 Sep. /MOLDPRES/- The authorization procedure for forestry works, such as clearing trees or removing affected ones will be simplified. Several amendments to normative acts aimed at the owners of land with forest vegetation were approved today by the cabinet, the government's communication and protocol department has reported.

So far, managers of lands covered with forest vegetation encountered difficulties in managing green spaces in urban and rural localities. They were required to get permits for green space cleaning works, which are carried out annually.

According to the new authorization mechanism, silvotechnical works will be able to be started following a notification, submitted to the Environment Agency through electronic systems or physically. The notification will contain information with reference to all aspects regarding the beneficiary, the need for intervention, the location, the method of intervention. Accordingly, the simplified mechanism offers the beneficiaries the opportunity to operate promptly, but with its implementation, the responsibility borne by the beneficiaries will also increase.

At the same time, the Notification procedure will be applied in case of liquidation of damages or urgent repairs to engineering networks; falling trees on buildings, electricity transmission lines, signaling equipment, electronic communications and other engineering networks; on railways, as well as in other cases of danger for the safety of train traffic; on community infrastructure objects (public roads, pedestrian areas, areas intended for recreation of the population) and in cases where the forest vegetation poses an increased risk for the safety of the population.

The targeted procedure will grant the subjects involved the right to legally intervene in the spaces that require emergency forestry work to be carried out, in order to eliminate the risk factors related to forest vegetation that does not meet the requirements and may pose a danger to society or infrastructure objectives. At the same time, the Environmental Agency will have the right to carry out information visits in the field, which until now has not been legally regulated.

One aspect that is proposed to be remedied by this draft law is the clarification of the aspect of ownership of forested lands, but now there is a lack of clarity regarding the situations in which it is necessary to authorize cutting on privately owned lands. In this context, the project expressly establishes the types of land with forest vegetation where authorization is required, in accordance with the regulations of the Forestry Code, which obliges the owners of forested lands to manage them according to forestry rules.

Photo: Government