Forest Concession in Romania and Brazil

The Romanian Forestry Code regulates the principle of conserving the biodiversity of forest ecosystems, by inserting sustainable management measures: the establishment of protected natural areas, ecological reconstruction, regeneration and forest care. The concession contract is not, in itself, a way of sustainable forest management, as is the case in other countries. Thus, the objective of this study is to analyze the legislation specific to the forestry field from the perspective of the concession contract, by identifying regulations that would be an example of good practice. In this sense, we have identified the regulations in Brazil, given the measures that this country has partially managed to implement for the protection of forest lands, as a model that will be followed in the near future, by the Romanian legislator. The comparative method of the legislation of the two countries aims to determine the deficiencies of this law from the perspective of the impact that the conclusion of a forest concession contract may have on the concessioned property itself, as well as the way in which the public interest is respected. The identification of sustainable management criteria, according to which the exploitation of public or private forest land is assigned, is an essential element to be taken into account in the case of a concession, in order to develop legislative proposals to improve the legal framework by which the principle of conserving the biodiversity of forest ecosystems should be applied. A particularly useful aspect for further research would be to address the issue in terms of international investment law.