Forest regulation

Chamber puts up a tree for Minister

The new EU Forestry Regulation is driving Chamber of Agriculture President Josef Moosbrugger up the wall - and not just him.  

Chamber of Agriculture President Josef Moosbrugger has been in a better mood before. The reason for his bad mood is a new EU regulation on forests - or as Moosbrugger calls it: "A bureaucratic monster that the EU is creating here and that should not be unleashed on our forest farmers." Behind the EU deforestation regulation is the desire not to convert forest land into agricultural land. The aim is to curb the global deforestation trend. Means to an end: more transparency. For example, so-called geolocalization - and this is precisely what Moosbrugger takes issue with. 

"As a result of the new regulation, a small forest owner who sells a few tree trunks to a carpenter, for example, would have to enter the exact GPS geolocation, including the Latin name, into a data collection system for each individual tree. That means an enormous amount of additional bureaucracy," he rages. Something like this would only increase the frustration of (forest) farmers over unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles, he is certain.

"All lumped together"
Moosbrugger is annoyed that "our sustainable forest management is being lumped together with the ruthless deforestation of the rainforests". He also accuses Minister Leonore Gewessler of not acting "responsibly" here, and Moosbrugger calls for the regulation to be revised. He is not alone in this. There is also resistance in other federal states. Regions with a "demonstrably stable to increasing forest area" and "strict legal management regulations" should be excluded.

An online petition has even been launched.(www.eu/!qtmdr). However, it remains to be seen whether the much-criticized information obligation for forest owners will perhaps fall like a sick ash tree after all.