Greenpeace Calls for Largest International Park in Europe in the Carpathians
Warsaw, September 26, 2024 – In response to the alarming rate of canopy loss [1] in one of Europe’s most critical biodiversity hotspots, where 4 hectares of forests are exploited every hour, Greenpeace CEE calls for the creation of an international park to preserve some of Europe’s oldest forests. Catastrophic floods triggered by Storm Boris present a stark reminder of the urgent need to protect nature in the face of escalating climate breakdown. Earlier this year, Greenpeace exposed IKEA’s connections to logging of Carpathians’ best preserved forests, emphasising that the legality of such destruction is no longer a valid excuse.
IKEA has denied destructive forestry practices [2], but Greenpeace argues that current protection measures are inadequate and stresses the need for enhanced protection to prevent the loss of remaining high biodiversity value areas. Corporations should immediately respect the identified No-Logging Areas as a precautionary measure in preparation for their official protection.
As climate experts warn that Europe, the world's fastest-warming continent, will continue to face extreme weather events, Greenpeace insists that preserving these forests is essential for building climate resilience.
After analyzing satellite images [3] and identifying the most precious forests, Greenpeace CEE presented a map for the area that could become the central element of Europe’s largest international park. Dubbed The ImPossible Park Carpathians, the ambitious initiative spans eight European countries, underscoring the urgent need for transboundary cooperation, as the current protection system is patchy and fragmented across different countries. This would become one of the world’s largest transboundary parks, seven times the size of Yellowstone.
In a letter to IKEA, Greenpeace called on the company to stop sourcing wood from areas identified as High Biodiversity Value Forests and urged them to respect these critical zones. Greenpeace also invited IKEA to become a frontrunner in Europe's most extensive forest protection effort by advocating for political action to safeguard the best preserved forests.
“The recent catastrophic floods added a new layer of urgency, as washed away homes, roads, and bridges left communities vulnerable and exposed. Forests offer a natural buffer against such disasters, and play a critical role in climate adaptation and biodiversity preservation. The Carpathians, home to over a third of Europe’s plant species and many rare animals, show how large protected areas can restore nature and build resilience” said Robert Cyglicki, Biodiversity Campaign Director at Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe.
Greenpeace is rallying public support to protect at least 50,000 km² of forests and critical areas, and calling the EU and national governments to fund wildlife protection as part of the plan for the EU 2030 Biodiversity Strategy implementation.
“There should be nothing impossible about this park, the current protection is faulty to the core. We need a real game changer for the Carpathians, urgently. Politicians and corporations can no longer play a card of ignorance. We want to inject hope and agency, refer to all other big achievements that seemed impossible once, and emphasize the importance of standing up for nature amid the global environmental and climate crisis. We are not just protecting the beautiful forests here. We are holding on to our dear lives.” added Cyglicki.
“We must give nature a chance to recover. Logging in High Biodiversity Value Forests needs to stop immediately, and international agreements on global biodiversity frameworks and political commitments are urgently required,” concludes Cyglicki.
Greenpeace is also urging the European Commission and EU governments to reaffirm their commitments to nature protection at the upcoming UN Biodiversity COP16 in late October. The organization calls for legally binding laws to safeguard ecosystems like the Carpathians, which are vital to Europe’s ability to combat biodiversity loss and climate change.
"Nature needs space as much as we need nature. Establishing the Carpathian Park as Europe's largest transboundary sanctuary is not just about conservation—it's about survival. A park of this scale with some roadless areas would be our greatest lifeline for biodiversity and a powerful shield against the climate crisis." says Nuria Selva, Associate Professor at the Institute of Nature Conservation at the Polish Academy of Science.
Greenpeace's proposed ImPossible Park Carpathians would be a critical step toward meeting the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy goals. The park is seen as a model for large-scale, cross-border conservation efforts that can help build a nature-positive future for Europe.
NOTES:
[1] ‘The Carpathian forests: Our Natural heritage Under Attack’ - link to the full report
[2] Nature Crime File – Declassified: Assemble the truth: Old-growth forest destruction in the Romanian Carpathians, Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe/ Romania, 2024.
[3] Methodology - Proposal for NO-LOGGING AREAS
[4] The Impossible Park Carpathians - No-Logging Map
Contacts:
Robert Cyglicki, Biodiversity Campaign Director, Greenpeace CEE
robert.cyglicki@greenpeace.org +48 501 101 769
Marija Tomac, Communications Strategist, Greenpeace CEE
marija.tomac@greenpeace.org +385 95 6274 528
Based on scientific studies and inputs from partners we have been working on identifying high-biodiversity forests in the Carpathian region that hosts the most connected and nature-diverse mixed forests in the European Union. Those forest areas become a central part of our proposal for the Impossible Park Carpathians in connection to existing national parks and other forests, providing continuity for a vital ecosystem on a large scale.
The current protection system is patchy and fragmented across different countries. While the Carpathians remain the best connected mixed forests within the European Union, the situation is changing fast, as an area the size of five football fields is lost to logging every hour.
The protection of the best preserved forests in the Carpathians becomes a significant contribution to the implementation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy and as such is of interest of the European Union. We call upon the EU and national governments to establish wildlife protection fund to strictly protect areas of very high biodiversity value and mobilize euro-regional funds to enhance cross-border protection.
We do not envision any restrictions for local communities unless it is agreed as part of management plan that would need to be developed in consultation with them. At the same time local forest community owners should be offered compensation for respecting no-logging protection of best preserved forests.
If we do not preserve places like the Carpathians, their biodiversity will collapse, and the consequences of the climate crisis we already face will be even more dire.
At the current pace, almost 20% of the Carpathian canopy cover from 2000 will be lost by 2050
We need to give nature a chance to recover and regenerate. While the limitation of logging might initially seem like an economic loss, the creation of a national park can bring significant benefits to local communities, which include long-term and sustainable economic diversification (such as sustainable tourism), nature restoration, cultural preservation, and improved quality of life.
The High Biodiversity Value Forests are the best preserved forests that have been identified so far. The one that offers best ecological services like carbon sequestration or protection from quick runoff of rainwater.
To protect the complex mountain ecosystem considered as part of the planetary safety net, we need to look beyond best preserved forests and support restoration of ecosystem services also from heavily managed forests, pasture lands or network of water streams and rivers.
While mapping High Biodiversity Value Forests we were harmonising different land cover data sets with studies and our own satellite imagery-based sensing methods aligned with a tree canopy cover in the Carpathian Environmental Outlook (KEO). The tree canopy cover is our baseline from datasets published by Hansen et al. (2013), which are sourced from Landsat data with 30-m resolution, where one pixel represents an area with at least 50% tree canopy coverage. All collected data sets have been cross-checked using automated and manual techniques, consulted with a number of experts, and followed with control field visits in randomly chosen locations. Although knowledge gaps remain, our map represents the latest collection of High Biodiversity Value Forests or potential outside national parks in the Carpathians.
After the release of the Greenpeace CEE investigation, which revealed that furniture manufacturers producing for IKEA are sourcing wood from some of Europe’s best-preserved forests in the Romanian Carpathians in April 2024, Greenpeace has had extensive discussions with representatives of IKEA. However, we have not yet reached an agreement on the necessary solutions and changes for the future of the Carpathian's forests and our planet. We are therefore increasing public pressure on the company's leadership.