20101007_Transilvania Expres_engl

TRANSILVANIA EXPRES
Press release in Romania (PP6), Oct 7th 2010
by Cosmin Horjan
TRANSILVANIA EXPRES
The National Forest Authority (Romsilva) is one of the partner in a transnational project, which
includes also other South-East European countries. The project “MONITOR II” aims to improve
the way of delivering information, which are necessary for the managing of disasters, by
elaborating risk maps and different methodologies to decrease risk factors on European level.
85% of the project budget of “Monitor II” is financed by the European Regional Development
Fund. The total value of the project amounts to more than 2, 35 million Euro. 13% out of the
amount will be covered by each partner country and 2% represents the contribution of Romsilva.
The countries involved in the project are: Italy, Serbia, Slovenia, Greece, Austria (project leader)
Bulgaria and Romania.
“We aim to elaborate a common methodology in order to prevent disasters, and also to identify
different mitigation methods. The project will be developed in different test areas: the Romanian
one is the Vrancea Region, namely Putna Valley that represents most of the region. We will
elaborate risk maps that will point out actual and potential hazard areas, which might affect
surrounding constructions. We try to involve different local authorities, the local public and as
well the specialized services. At the level of Brasov County the project focus is especially on
windthrow and floods, due to the fact that these phenomenon being more frequent in the area”
was specified by Vica Petrisor, representative of Romsilva and project coordinator for the
Romanian part.
Stefan Kollarits, the project manager of MONITOR II from Austria, specified the fact that “within
the workshops, each partner can learn from the methodologies that have been already
elaborated by the involved countries or have been tested so far. Therefore it is important for the
experts to meet occasionally to guarantee an exchange of experiences and knowledge. In Austria
we have a lot of high mountains, where avalanches can occur. But the main and important
problems occur in connection with floods. Therefore we aim to develop instruments for a
common mitigation strategy. This strategy might become a strong argument or rather basis for
future infrastructure projects”.
30.06.2010
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