Green Gold Romania is home to the largest virgin forests in Europe, but during the last 30 years, it has been abused fiercely. Since the fall of communism, large areas of land were given back to their rightful owners. The logging industry evolved, and since the late 1990s and up until now, deforestation and illegal logging has been a huge problem in Romania. Today the mafia controls the industry, and they suppress anyone, who tries to fight against the illegal logging. The local communities in Northern Romania are affected by the conflict around the forest. People live in constant fear of what will happen if they don’t obey the mafia, and yet local activists and forest rangers still risks their lives in the fight for preserving the forest. According to Greenpeace, the Romanian state loses around € 1.5 billion a year to illegal logging. Each year, 18 million m3 of timber is allowed to fell, but in reality, more than 38 million m3 of timber is felled. Tree exported to the European market and used by big companies like IKEA and others, leaving the largest virgin forest in Europe out of control to a corrupt and violent industry. Romania, October 2019