As many as18,000 ha of forests have been destroyed over the past month only in the regions of Montana, Vratsa and Vidin due to hurricane winds, ice-breaking and blizzards, the forestry services in charge report. Intense logging activities will try to clean the fallen trees in the course of the next couple of years. The surviving trees will be removed as well, since those can’t make it on their own, experts claim. The measure, ceasing the export of wood abroad, though for a period of three months only, has caused the mass discontent of traders and exporters. Those are ready to organize large-scale protests in case the ban doesn’t drop in the shortest terms possible. They say that if they stop work some 8,000 workers won’t have what to do within this term. More than 100 companies in the sector might go bankrupt and 800 might suffer one way or another. Business representatives say that nearly EUR 15 million won’t enter the state budget due to the moratorium – they would have paid the money for transportation, harbors, forestry premises etc. According to data of wood exporters only 16 percent of the material, coming from the Bulgarian forests goes abroad, says Dimitar Nikolov, who has already signed contracts for regular deliveries to Turkey.

“This moratorium causes not only ethic, but also social tension. Not a single member of the committee has visited the forest to see that only the poorest people do that job. How come any export ceasing might have an impact on illegal logging, we ask. No one has declared so far any illegal actions of a colleague – exporter. On the contrary, there have been a total of 1,500 administrative penalties for people, involved in illegal activities in the sector. However, those people are not a part of us, they do not work in the timber export sector, they are not even our suppliers… So now we, the exporters, have to fire many workers. We also suspend our contracts with Greece and Turkey. The two states will find different contractors during the moratorium term.”

Expert in ecology Andrey Kovachev from the Transparent Mountains association said in a dialogue with the businessman: “There can’t be such large-scale logging across the country and you, exporters, care only about the export and profits.”

“I will take you to the Bulgarka natural park and I will show you how sanitation tree cutting has been used for the logging of old forests that shouldn’t have been logged – for the moment not a single person has been sentenced for that. At the same time the volumes of illegal logging have actually increased as of 2005. You say that forests are a renewable resource and I ask you the following: how many years do you think it will take a century-old forest to recover, as it faces the greediest appetites of woodcutters?”