Bucharest's new Green Belt should reduce air pollution

29/10/2007

After years of continued deforestation around the Romanian capital, authorities are taking ecological warnings seriously by planning to build a Green Belt around Bucharest.

By Paul Ciocoiu in Bucharest for Southeast European Times - 29/10/07

Bucharest boasts only 25% of the forestland it had in 1989. [Getty Images]

Bucharest has suffered severe deforestation over the past two decades, with growing air pollution as a result. Now municipal authorities hope to reverse the trend by planting trees in seven villages around the city, creating a Green Belt.

"We aim at planting 200,000 new trees," said Mayor Adriean Videanu, assessing the cost at between 5m and 10m euros.

The project, recommended by the agriculture ministry, is being implemented over a six year period. Besides improving air quality in the capital, the project will help control urban sprawl, provide recreational spaces and preserve the scenery.

According to experts, over the past 17 years almost one million trees have been cut down in Bucharest, and another two million in surrounding areas. After the overthrow of communism, large tracts of forestland were returned to private owners, many of whom decided to convert them to agricultural use. As a result, Bucharest boasts only 25% of the forestland it had in 1989.

The impact on health is serious. According to the Environmental Experts' Association (AEM), the dust quantity in Bucharest measures 260 to 280 tonnes per sq km, while in other European capitals -- some of them much larger -- the volume is around two tonnes per km.

Green spaces provide "a barrier against dust, purify air and diminish phonic pollution" says AEM Vice President Florin Vasiliu. "At the same time, they help maintain the temperature differences between seasons, days and nights."

Almost 10,000 residents die annually from pollution-related causes, the group Eco-Civica reports.

City Hall experts have started to inventory the trees in Bucharest, which is estimated to total around 1.5 million. Old and sick trees will be cut down and replaced with saplings.

Almost one million trees in Bucharest are more than 30 years old, and risk uprooting by storms, posing another threat, Videanu says.