I just received this article from The Guardian about plans to create a huge național park in Romania’s Făgăraș mountains. The idea is not only to protect forests and wildlife, but also support local communities with ecotourism and nature-positive businesses. It sounds like a wonderful idea and I hope that it succeeds. Evidently there is a huge problem with illegal logging, and this would hopefully stem that as well as create a beautiful park for locals and tourists to see and enjoy. According to Andy Pietrasik, the head of Travel at The Guardian;
[T]his densely forested corner of Transylvania, is one of Europe’s last
truly wild places. Romania has more than 6m hectares of forest, of
which a significant portion is still “virgin”, unfragmented areas with
no human settlement, where bears, wolves and lynx still roam free. But
like the rainforest of Brazil, this one faces an existential threat;
illegal logging has cleared vast swathes of trees, and the destruction
continues. There is, however, a glimmer of hope. The Foundation
Conservation Carpathia (FCC) is at the forefront of an ambitious plan
to create the continent’s largest forested national park – a
Yellowstone for Europe.