Exploring the intersections between illegal logging and environmental injustice in Romania

• In Event: Green Criminology #5- Environmental crimes and economic activities

Abstract

This contribution aims to unpack the environmental justice dimensions of illegal logging in Romania by bringing together approaches from green criminology and a long-term commitment to the political ecology of Eastern Europe.
Illegal logging and timber trade (ILTT) is a global problem with substantial negative economic, environmental and social impacts. Romania stands out as a country where ILTT seems out of control. In recent years, activists, politicians and elected representatives started to call ILTT a serious organised crime referring to mafia-like operations as a transnational phenomenon. At the same time, research exploring the Romanian dimensions of ILLT exposed issues of corruption, lack of compliance with EU’s environmental legislation and the challenges of policing and enforcement, but gave scant attention to the harms associated with forest crime. Although the most visible harms are environmental, the phenomenon has wreaked havoc on rural livelihoods bringing about multiple forms of environmental injustice. In Romania, these new realities have dramatically affected the forestry sector, created numerous timber shortages and led to an increase in violence across the Carpathians. These interrelated processes led to a precarity of the workforce, energy poverty and further marginalization of many vulnerable groups such as Roma or unemployed people. Moreover, the unsteadiness of legal frameworks related to forest management and protection (Drăgoi & Toza 2019) have maintained legal loopholes and contributed to the development of an overwhelming bureaucracy, which made compliance ever more challenging for economic operators, forcing some to operate at the border of legality. Civic participation in monitoring and reporting cases of illegal logging has often aided enforcement efforts but also contributed to the unfolding of forest crisis narratives and scapegoating forest-dependent communities. The paper combines expert interviews done between 2019 and 2024 with follow-the-policy methods, and is part of the EcoJust project which explores environmental conflicts in Romania.

Author

• George Iordachescu, Universitatea Lucian Blaga din Sibiu; Wageningen University