Greenpeace Romania activists staged a protest outside the IKEA Pallady store in Bucharest, highlighting the link between the furniture on its shelves and the clear-cutting of an ancient forest in the Poiana Rusca Mountains (Compartment 37, Natura 2000 site ROSCI0219), the organisation said in a press release sent to AGERPRES on Tuesday.

According to the press release, the action marks the simultaneous launch of the Romanian investigation 'Among Stumps and Chainsaws: How Romania's Last Irreplaceable Forests Are Disappearing' and the Greenpeace Nordic report 'The Missing Manual: What IKEA Must Do to Protect Europe's Forests', which criticises the Swedish company for failing to take responsibility for meeting European and global biodiversity targets.

The activists are calling on IKEA to immediately stop sourcing timber from forests of high biodiversity value, and on the Ministry of Environment to impose a moratorium on all areas proposed for strict protection.

The activists laid out a symbolic carpet of sawdust and sections of tree trunks and displayed banners calling on the company and national authorities to take action to ensure genuine biodiversity protection and halt logging in forests proposed for strict protection.

'For the third year running, our investigations have shown that IKEA is complicit in the destruction of the last ancient forests in the Carpathians. The case in Rusca Montanaă provides clear evidence on the ground: a forest proposed for strict protection was clear-cut before the law could save it, and the timber most likely went to factories producing furniture for IKEA. FSC certification protects nothing; it is merely a detail on paper. We are calling on IKEA to stop sourcing timber from forests proposed for strict protection, and on the Ministry of Environment and the Government to immediately halt logging in all these areas until they are formally designated,' said Valentin Salageanu, Forests and Biodiversity Campaigns Coordinator at Greenpeace Romania, as quoted in the press release.

Although it was included on the list of areas proposed for strict protection under the EU's 10% target, the forest in Compartment 37 was completely felled. No trees were left standing; logging roads were cut into steep slopes, and the stream bed in the area was turned into a forest road. After the forest had been reduced to logs, the compartment disappeared from the map of areas eligible for strict protection, the organisation claims.

According to Greenpeace Romania, IKEA received the investigation before publication. In its right of reply, Inter IKEA Group requested that its position be reflected, stating that logging in Compartment 37 had been legally authorised under an approved forest management plan in a Natura 2000 area. The company rejected the photographic evidence as an unrepresentative snapshot and said it had engaged its own experts to monitor the area's regeneration alongside FSC and local authorities. However, according to Greenpeace, the company did not address the documented operational issues observed on the ground, including severe soil erosion, the use of the stream bed as a timber extraction route, and the absence of habitat trees and deadwood. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Cristian Anghelache; EN - writing by: Cristina Zaharia)