Forests are, without any doubt, essential to the quality of human life. In Iceland, for example, people were even urged to go and hug a tree as a way to overcome the isolation because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Forests and woodland in the European Union cover an area of 182 million hectares, or 5% of all forests in the world. The list of EU countries is topped by Sweden with 30.5 million hectares of wooded areas, followed by Spain with 27.6 million hectares. At the opposite end of the scale is Malta with only 1.1% of its territory covered in woodland.  According to Executive Forests Agency data forestlands in Bulgaria cover an area of 3.8 million hectares, or around 30% of the country’s territory, with around 30 species of trees growing in them. The oldest tree in the country is a 1,600-year old oak tree, though the total number of centuries-old trees in Bulgaria is 2,300.

The agency has registered an increase in the total area of forests, in the period from 1960 until 2017, by over 600,000 hectares, not without the help of the tree-planting campaign of Nikola Rahnev - Гората.бг (https://gorata.bg/ ). For 8 years its aim has been to have 1 million trees planted by volunteers. The target is expected to be reached this autumn, the figure now stands at 902,000.

“The easiest way to truly grasp something in depth is to experience it. After the events we organize people go home transformed. The children who take part in our tree-planting or grow-your-own-tree initiatives may one day be the motor of positive changes.”

According to data of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization 130,000 sq. kms. of world forests disappear every year as a result of deforestation. At the same time there are over 1 billion hectares of destroyed or degraded forest lands in the world which can be restored.

The awareness of environmental issues in Bulgaria has improved in recent years, Nikola Rahnev says:

“This is a natural function of the fact that more and more attention has been given to nature on a world scale. One of the reasons is climate change, natural disasters and even the pandemic now. Society as a whole is evolving and things are changing – quantity and quality-wise.”

Planting a tree makes people more responsible to the world, Nikola Rahnev says. The number of people wanting to join the tree planting campaigns has been growing. They do not have a typical profile, coming from different group in society but there is one thing they all have in common – they are “good people”, says the founder of the initiative gorata.bg:

“Young people have been increasingly interested and have been looking for more information now that access to such information is so much easier. The youngest participant we have in our campaign is a 9-day old baby, of course, together with both his parents. We have had people over 90 take part. The participants are very different – where they come from, what their social status or profession is.”

Even though for Nikola Rahnev the felling of every tree is a disaster, he says that the biggest environmental problem Bulgaria faces is not illegal logging but pollution – of the air, soil, household as well as industrial pollution. And adds that the information now included in some subjects at school is not enough.

“If we reach out to children, to pupils, to young people and give them the knowledge and the opportunity to lead a nature-friendly life, in a few decades’ time they may build a society capable of solving all problems we have no answer to today.”

Photos: Gorata.bg