The Romania plants for tomorrow action is a great contribution and support of three objectives of the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Agenda: Climate Action, Terrestrial Life and Partnerships for Achieving the Goals.
In the upcoming two years, another one million trees will be planted together with volunteers and partner organisations, just like OMV Petrom that has allocated 4.6 million euros as financial support. Franck Neel, Member of the Executive Board responsible for Downstream Gas at OMV Petrom, considered it as their own personal contribution to a cleaner environment.
The program is the greatest private forestation initiative in Romania, in which OMV Petrom, the largest energy company in South-Eastern Europe, has been contributing since March 2020 and continues its forestation actions. Also, the Ministry of the Environment, Waters and Forests and other six non-governmental organisations cooperate and support the forestation action and through it, they contribute to environmental protection. To be more efficient, the Ministry provided specialists in planting and local expertise throughout the entire planting campaign.
“Despite the difficult context in 2020, we followed through on our commitment and planted 550,000 trees, observing all the sanitary and distancing rules,” said Christina Verchere, OMV Petrom CEO. “Forestation plays an important role in the absorption and storage of carbon dioxide and we want to contribute to the effort of having a cleaner environment. We believe such projects can make a difference in creating a better life and we will be continuing our planting campaign in the next years.”
The efforts were taken in spring and autumn: the participants planted trees on an area of 124 hectares, in 32 localities, in 15 counties. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic sanitary and physical distancing measures were observed and sanitary protection equipment were provided to the volunteers, who had been divided into groups during the plantings which have been performed mechanically.
The forestation action is a real solution to prevent water accumulation, floods and soil desertification, that is why the program really helps communities affected by landslides. As known, forests are considered among the most important carbon dioxide deposits, so at the same time, the action contributes to the capture of carbon dioxide. It is estimated that each tree planted neutralises an average of 5.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide per year.
Since 2018 OMV Petrom has become the largest private promoters of planting actions: the company has planted over 1.2 million trees on an area of 140 hectares.
