Within the three-year project „ Regional Action for Combating Forest Crime and Corruption“in Sarajevo on November 5. 2019, the first regional workshop was held, which brought together representatives of the forestry sector from BiH, Northern Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro.
The workshop was organized by the CNVP Foundation, Green Home and fea to establish a regional communication group, as well as exchanging knowledge and experiences in detecting and preventing illegal activities in forestry.
The purpose of the workshop was to appoint representatives in each of the four mentioned countries and it was also stated that the region is characterized by approximately the same problems, with some institutions additionally burdened by lack of staff and appropriate equipment and inability to control large areas of forests.
The severity of the problem is also indicated by the data of the Agency for Prevention of Corruption and Coordination of the Fight against Corruption of BiH that in BiH in the period from 2016 to 2019 there was an increase in illegal logging and a decrease in indictments for forest theft.
Workshop participants agreed that cooperation and engagement for a large number of institutions are needed to solve the problem. The next regional workshop will be held in Serbia in 2020.