Assessment of Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services in Romanian

• the majority of institutions said that rules and laws on land and natural resources
management do not cover all the activities under their policy sector;
• on the question about the efficient integration of the ecosystem services concept
within their policy sector, the National Forest Administration representative considers
it to be inefficient, a representative from NEPA and the Ministry of Environment
Forests and Water representative consider it to be insufficiently efficient, and the
Authority for Payments and Interventions in Agriculture does not know;
• all institutional representatives have agreed that major problems in the integration
and implementation of the ecosystem services concept within public policies are:
the fact that the concept is not understood, lack of information about ecosystem
services, lack of implementation instruments, an ambiguous legislative framework,
and unclear institutional responsibilities. Similarly, when asked what could be
improved the majority said about raising stakeholders’ awareness, improving
clarity of the legislative framework, and clearly defining responsibilities;
• the type of information system used by each institution is not clearly defined,
whether it is specific for activities managed by the institution and/or for ecosystems
supporting activities managed by the institution and/or geographic/geospatial;
• the need for an integrated information system with on-time information has been
raised. Still, information from different information sources seems to be integrated
and used in decision-making. However, a more comprehensive image about
ecosystem services is necessary for decision-making.
Overall, the following challenges have been encountered in the process of engaging
institutional stakeholders:
• understanding the relevance concerning the involvement within the MAES process
of the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Economy;
• keeping continuity in institutional representation in the MAES process as well as
ensuring communication between decision makers and technical personnel;
• understanding the link between a sectoral policy and the environment. For
example, Ministry of Transport and Ministry of Economy consider that the Ministry
of Environment is overall responsible for environmental objectives;
• lack of intra-institutional communication and coordination about reporting
obligations, which makes finding the information a lengthy and beaurocratic
process;
• short-term involvement in project activities like the N4D project rather then
engagement in a long-term process such as MAES, and lack of official intrainstitutional
communication about the personnel designated and the process itself.
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2.4. Recommendations for policy and decision
making towards a Sustainable Green Economy
This report concludes with the following recommendations to policy and decision makers
that are willing to implement a Sustainable Green Economy in the context of sustainable
development:
1. To develop and implement a Sustainable Green Economy strategy correlated
with the National Sustainable Development strategy. Strategy development
should be based on business sector analysis about use of and dependence
upon ecosystem services necessary to plan the transition to a Sustainable Green
Economy. Furthermore, beyond GDP indicators should be used in decision and
policy making such as Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity indicators as well as
other green economy indicators. Also, the concept of Sustainable Green Economy
defined for Romania should be integrated into sectoral public policies dealing
with ecosystems and natural resources management and implemented accordingly.
2. Inter-institutional integration and coordination should be actively pursued
to achieve Good Ecosystems Governance. Also, to ensure understanding and
use of scientific knowledge on ecosystems and their services it is fundamental