FEDERATION COALITION NATURA 2000 ROMANIA Information concerning the impact of the EGO 75/2018 regarding the change of normatives in the field of environmental protection
The map of protected areas in Romania (national parks, natural parks, reservations of national interest, Natura 2000 sites, Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve) Protected areas in Romania cover over 25% of the country surface. A low percentage, 1,2% of the country surface, is included in scientific reservations and national parks, where the restrictions to use the natural resources and realize different investments are high. Most of the protected areas, especially natural parks and Natura 2000 sites are meant to preserve the
natural and cultural heritage, using practices for resources exploitation and local development that are in harmony with nature. The custodians and managers of these protected areas have to take into account both, the nature conservation and the need for local and regional development based on sustainable use of the natural and cultural heritage. 1
FEDERATION COALITION NATURA 2000 ROMANIA The role of custodians and the impact of the EGO on the protected areas The non-governmental organizations and other entities have contributed constantly over the last years to fulfill the responsibilities of the Ministry of Environment, the National Agency for Nature Protected Areas (NANPA) and the Agencies for Environmental Protection concerning the management of nature protected areas. The custodians, mostly consisting in environmental NGOs, have contributed with their own resources or/and have accessed funds devoted to nature conservation. As a result, management plans for the protected areas were elaborated and their implementation was launched, contributing directly to the fulfillment of the commitments taken by Romania at EU and international level. The assessment done by ANANP1 at the end of 2017 emphasized that 530 nature protected areas had custodians, while 455 were managed by different administrations, out of the total of 985 PA. From this total, 264 PA are in custody of 60 NGOs, which manage about 1,6 million hectares from Romania’s surface. In case of violation of the custodian conventions, the central public authority responsible for environmental protection always had the possibility to cancel these conventions. For instance, between 2014 – 2016, 119 custody conventions were cancelled2. Through the sudden changes of the GO 57/2007, adopted on July 19, 2018, 166 custodians who took care over the last years of different categories of protected areas, lose one of their main objects of activity. At national level, this means a high loss of managerial resources for the protected areas in Romania, acquired in difficult conditions and over long periods of time, by performing field work, training, knowledge and experience exchange at national and international level, etc. The experience and expertise acquired by the NGOs, by involving and communicating directly with the local communities and the numerous nature conservation activities cannot be replaced suddenly by the central public authority.
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http://ananp.gov.ro/ananp/2017/12/21/raport-evaluare-custozi-administratori/ http://mmediu.ro/app/webroot/uploads/files/SNPACB_revizuita.pdf
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FEDERATION COALITION NATURA 2000 ROMANIA NANPA assessment of custodians has shown that they successfully fulfill their responsibilities Between October – December 2017, NANPA has performed a national assessment of the „level of implication of the managers and custodians in respecting the contracts and conventions signed with NANPA”. According to NANPA report3: - in most cases, the managers and custodians fulfill successfully their obligations and responsibilities, 94% of NANPA rating being „very good” and „good” (respectively 276 out of the total of 295 ratings); - the ”vulnerabilities” for the management of the protected areas, highlighted by NANPA during the evaluation, overcome the responsibilities and the possibilities of the managers, requiring support from the state and stakeholders. Some of these vulnerabilities are in the direct responsibility of the state institutions (e.g. „beneficiaries pressures concerning the permits for plans/projects/activities”, lack of stable funding and continuous change of legislation”, „incorrect limits and overlaps”, „lack of the habitats/species for which nature protected areas were designated”). Most of the vulnerabilities represent threats for maintaining the natural values of the protected areas. These threats were identified by the managers and measures to counteract or mitigate them were addressed in the management plans of the nature protected areas (e.g. ”urban development”, „poaching and hunting”, „burning the fields”, „use of herbicides”, „land use change”, “increased number of visitors leading to the alteration of ecosystems”, “lack of support from the local communities”, etc.). All the problems highlighted by NANPA emphasize the need of support and constructive intervention from the state, in order to support the activity of the managers, and by no means justify their exclusion from the managerial system. NANPA assessment highlighted the pressures exerced by the beneficiaries on the PA managers to grant permits for investments and activities in the protected areas as being a problem
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http://ananp.gov.ro/ananp/2017/12/21/raport-evaluare-custozi-administratori/
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FEDERATION COALITION NATURA 2000 ROMANIA The pressures exerted by beneficiaries to obtain the permits for developing their investments in the protected areas were emphasized as one of the vulnerabilities of the managerial system. The fact that the central authority for the management of protected areas acknowledged the pressures on the PA managers to grant permits for plans/projects/activities contrasting with the interest of the protected areas, shows that support from the state is required in order to reduce these very pressures. Instead, the changes adopted through the GO 75/19.07.2018, shortly after the appointment of a new president at NANPA, act in the opposite direction, removing the custodians, who resisted to these pressures, to facilitate new investments in the protected areas. In case the custodians did not fulfill their tasks, the state had other means to act Worldwide, the societal development is based on contracts, with rights and obligations, concluded between different organizations, be it state or private entities. In Romania, until the adoption of the EGO 75/19.07.2018, the managerial system of the protected areas was diversified, ensuring balanced decisions. For over 18 years, the management of the PA was performed based on contracts, respectively, custody conventions, concluded with the Ministry of Environment, and recently, with NANPA. The contracts and conventions are based on clear obligations and rights for managers and custodians, while the state funding for the management of the protected areas, although possible and even included in the Law of protected areas, was never available. Consequently, the custodians and managers from most PA had to acquire projects and private funding to manage the PA and to ensure the partnership with the Ministry of Environment by preserving the natural heritage hosted by the PA, elaborating the management plans and to carry on a high number of conservation, public awareness and education activities. If there are managers and custodians who did not fulfill their contractual obligations, they can be penalized or legally excluded from the management of the PA – annual reports of the environmental guards and the assessment performed by NANPA are available on the internet, where they can be easily checked. If a custodian or a manager abusively blocks e.g. infrastructure projects, the Ministry of Environment or NANPA could have easily cancelled their contracts and punctually
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FEDERATION COALITION NATURA 2000 ROMANIA solve these cases. However, if a custodian disagrees with a certain project due to the environmental problems this may pose, and requests that the environmental procedures from the Romanian and international legislation are respected, it does not mean that he blocks infrastructure projects. Under these circumstances, we wonder what situations were considered in the substantiation note of the EGO 75, when custodians were accused of blocking such projects? Either the Ministry of Environment and NANPA did not cancel the contracts of the custodians who did not do their job, either the custodians were right, their contracts could not have been legally cancelled, and the only way to eliminate their filter was the EGO 75, at the same time solving the problem of the poor environmental impact assessment?
The custodians perform their tasks responsibly, in line with the legislation requirements, exerting the authority delegated by the Ministry, based on the custodian contracts. Granting permits for human activities in the protected areas is just one of the management components, aiming to safeguard the natural values and ensure a balance between human society development and nature conservation, for the public benefit. Granting abusively such permits not only alters biodiversity, but is against the citizen constitutional right to have a healthy environment. The protected areas represent nature heritage areas, have a special regime, and they were established by the state for the societal benefit. Consequently, during the permit granting process, the state, through its institutions and with the support of the custodians, takes care that any human intervention is justified, well founded scientifically and does not alter or ruin the nature heritage values for which the area was declared as protected. In many cases, the difficulties in granting the permits are due to the non-conformities with the environmental legislation. The state, who declared these protected areas for the societal benefit and is responsible for their conservation, has the role to ensure that the beneficiaries of the investment projects fully respect the legal requirements. However, in reality, the motivation of the GO 75 proves the governmental interest to use the protected areas according to its will by “un-blocking infrastructure projects facing difficulties in implementation, as well as approved projects, which cannot start, due to the difficulty to obtain all the permits�.
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FEDERATION COALITION NATURA 2000 ROMANIA The management of protected areas means much more than granting environmental permits – fact acknowledged by the Romanian state. To fulfill the complex management objectives in a professional way, which can ensure the basis for a sustainable development of the region, expertise, experience and funding for the nature protected areas are needed. We consider that in Romania, where there is a high requirement for financial support in health, education and infrastructure, maintaining a diversified system for the management and funding of the protected areas is needed, with the observation that the state should invest as well in essential activities to preserve these valuable areas. While worldwide the trend is to diversify the funding sources for PA, by attracting the support of private partners and form public-private partnerships, Romania takes backward steps, by excluding all those who ensured the maintenance of the natural values pro-bono and with high efforts. Contesting the emergency of this ordinance By adopting this ordinance, the Government has violated art. 115, par. (4) of the Romanian Constitution, according to which „the Government may adopt emergency ordinances only in extraordinary situations, which cannot suffer any delay, having the obligation to motivate the emergency in the content”. For the EGO 75/2018, the justifications and dispositions regarding the management of protected areas do not fulfill the conditions of an emergency and extraordinary situation: - the custodians have long term contractual relationships with the NANPA, and if eventual management problems have occurred, they did not happen over-night, unexpectedly, to justify the extraordinary emergency to modify the GO 57/2007. - the permanent bureau of the Deputy Chamber has established the period of the extraordinary session for the interval 1 – 19 July, allowing the inclusion on the agenda of this normative, if the situation would have been justified. However, the Government preferred to adopt the changes of GO 57/2007 on 19.07.2018, by an emergency ordinance, without any prior consultation with the public and the parliament. The recent evaluation at national level of the activity of PA custodians and managers has shown that the system was working well, and that it needed support from the state. However, after the appointment of a new president of NANPA, the same managers are excluded from the managerial system through a discriminatory measure. 6
FEDERATION COALITION NATURA 2000 ROMANIA Other information The GO blocks the activity in over 100 Natura 2000 sites where the custodians have attracted, with high efforts, European or private funding for nature conservation activities and projects for the benefit of the local communities.
August 2018
Federation Coalition Natura 2000
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