Green light for the Bucharest-Ilfov Green Belt. Unanimous vote from the joint committees for the environment and for forests in the Senate

Bucharest-Ilfov Green Belt (www.centuraverde.ro) is a public health project with a strong social and anti-pollution component, as well as mitigation of the effects of climate change, part of a systemic solution that also involves a significant environmental component.

In the context of the dramatic pollution in Bucharest and the worrisome cutting of forests around the Capital, over 150 non-governmental organizations, civic groups and public persons, united in a non-political approach under the umbrella of the Civic Platform Together for the Green Belt and with the support of the Presidential Administration, came meeting politicians and authorities with the Memorandum for Clean Air, Health and Future.

The document, in seven points, contains the amendments to the new forestry code and which are intended to protect the forests of Ilfov, the cornerstone of the future Bucharest-Ilfov Green Belt, the creation of green belts for other cities, as well as solutions to pollution in Bucharest and county, but also for the rest of the country: https://bit.ly/3LULwPK. Among them are the creation and adoption of an integrated plan of the Bucharest City Hall and the Ilfov County Council to combat pollution or the inclusion of the topic related to air pollution in Bucharest and other cities on the agenda of the CSAT-Supreme Council of National Defense.

Submitted by deputies Diana Buzoianu (USR) and Oana Cambera (REPER), the amendments were assumed as authors by several parliamentarians: the current minister of the environment, Mircea Fechet (PNL deputy), the former minister of the environment Tanczos Barna (senator UDMR) , the President of the Senate, Nicolae Ciucă (president and senator PNL), Kelemen Hunor (president and deputy UDMR), the Minister of Justice, Alina Gorghiu (vice-president and senator PNL), Aurel Oprinoiu (president of the Environment Commission, senator USR), Lucian Mazilu (president Commission for Waters, Forests, Fishing and Hunting, PSD Senator), Virgil Popescu (Chairman of the Commission for Environment and Ecological Balance, PNL Deputy, former Minister of Energy), Robert Cazanciuc (PSD Senator, former Minister of Justice), Cristian Ţagarlaş ( president of the Legal Commission, PNL senator), Brian Cristian (USR deputy), Laura Moagher (PSD senator), Dragoş Popescu (REPER senator), Sebastian Cernic (USR senator), Andrei Lupu (REPER deputy) and Adrian Giurgiu (USR deputy).

With unanimity, the assembled commissions voted today also for free access to the forest for recreation, a topic that has sparked heated debates in the public space in the last half year and for which the civic platform carried out an intense advocacy activity.

Also, the assembled commissions also unanimously voted for the protection and conservation of outstanding trees from the National Forestry Fund through the new forestry code, after, two weeks ago, the Civic Platform Together for the Green Belt obtained, through an unprecedented institutional commitment, the support official of the Ministry of Environment for them. They are the custodians of an identity memory that, once lost, will never be recovered and will thus create a void that cannot be filled.

“The forest around the cities means much more than the timber or the value of the wood in money. Infinitely more. The forest means oxygen. It means Life. The forest means health, including mental health. It means therapy and healing for a society increasingly alienated by the loss of connection and the abandonment of the man who makes it up. The forest is containment. The forest is love”, said Alex Găvan, founder of the Civic Platform Together for the Green Belt.

Through an online petition that has already collected over 11,800 signatures, (https://campaniamea.declic.ro/p/ImpreunaPentruCenturaVerde), the Civic Platform Together for the Green Belt invites citizens to join in asking political and executive decision-makers for concrete measures for Clean Air, Health and Future.