Cu bicicleta pe Calea Victoriei: despre regulamentele impuse de Codul silvic [Biking on Calea Victoriei: an inquiry about regulations required by the Forest Act.]

Alluding the two lanes separated by a long curb, dangerous for bikers running on the right lane and annoying for regular drivers, running on the left lane of Calea Victoriei (a one-way famous drive crossing Bucharest center), some comments concerning the opportunities and risks pending on two important regulations required by the Romania Forest Act, as amended in 2015, are presented. The first regulation, already in place for two years, changed two times and yet inconclusive for most of the stakeholders (logging companies, wood industry and forest administration), has created a series of troubles due to some too detailed articles, meant to discourage illegal logging. The details are so precise that laypeople are discouraged to request information whether or not a load of wood comes from legal or illegal fellings (actually they are fined if the transport is legal), while forest rangers are discouraged to put into value salvage cuttings, because the information system doesn’t allow the foresters to bring down the logs’ quality (loss of timber quality is inevitable in salvage cuttings after windthrow, due to internal tensions brought about by many trees fallen on each other). If that regulation seems to be disastrous for logging industry, this could be a good signal that things are heading to the right direction, in the sense that a lot of companies are welcome to leave the market of logging operations, where the demand of timber is so high that prices cannot be controlled. In other terms, a disputable regulation, which is troublesome in many respects, might work as a negative feed-back loop, which is beneficial for the forest health. The second regulation, still loitering on someone’s desk (the bill was handed over to the government by the end of 2016), refers to non-wood forest products. A series of opportunities this regulation might create are discussed at length, because some activities focused on non-wood could be financed by the Rural Development Program, provided that regulation is in place. Finally the editorial sheds light on the responsibility undertaken by whoever has been getting involved in drafting such regulations, that must obey the same Hippocratic principle: “if you cannot help, at least try not to harm”.