'I was afraid we would die': Attack highlights violence of Romania’s 'wood mafia', 04 October 2021

On September 16, 2021, two journalists and an environmental activist were beaten by some 20 attackers in Romania’s northeastern Suceava County while filming a documentary about illegal logging. It is the latest incident in a long history of violence in Romania’s primeval forests, which have become an unlikely battleground between illegal loggers and those trying to protect one of the world’s most ancient ecosystems... [J]ournalists Mihai Dragolea and Radu Constantin Mocanu, as well as the activist Tiberiu Bosutar, who was helping them track down environmental crimes in the region for their documentary [...] travelled to a specific section of the forest after a villager reported unusual activities to Bosutar on Facebook, where the activist regularly shares live feeds of illicit deforestation...

We arrived at the section of the forest on September 16 at around 2:30pm, and about half an hour later, about 20 people armed with axes and bats arrived and, before long, they began attacking us... All of our footage was deleted and our equipment destroyed by the attackers. If it’s worth acting like an organised mob towards journalists and activists, it means there is a lot to lose and there is a lot of money involved...

... In recent years, six foresters have been killed, while 650 have been beaten, attacked with axes and knives, or even shot at after catching illegal loggers in the act... In 2019, the killing of two forest rangers trying to protect the country’s forests against the "wood mafia" sparked national and international outrage...

Since the fall of communism in 1989, foreign timber companies have been rushing to Romania’s forests to take advantage of the timber resources. These include HS Timber, formerly known as Austrian Holzindustrie Schweighofer, which has supplied wood to major European companies, including Ikea. In 2015, the Environmental Investigation Agency released a report that revealed the existence of covert video recordings of a Schweighofer official admitting to buying illegal wood and even offering bonuses for suppliers of illicit timber. The company has denied the allegations...