Protecting the Carpathian Eden

Wild Carpathia is an astonishing documentary produced by the European Nature Trust about the beauty of the native forest land covering a large part of the Romanian Carpathian Mountains. Paul Lister, founder of the trust, talks to Business Review about his philanthropic work focused on Romania – “Europe’s Garden of Eden”, as he calls it.

Anca Ionita

What are you trying to achieve with this film?
It’s a communication tool with a big reach – 110 countries and 20 languages. We are hoping to show people all over the world how amazing the state of play in a country like Romania is and to be proud of it. Romania is a unique corner of Europe and people have to understand that. We, in the West, have done a wholesale job of destroying all of our forests, with maybe 1 percent left. Your country still has 25 percent of its original native forest left. The film is also intended to boost tourism.

We are not going to make profits; I’m more a philanthropist than a businessman. If I can recover half the money that I’ve invested in this project, I’ll feel more than lucky.

Is it your money, or did you raise it?
It’s my money, through the European Nature Trust that I set up in 2001, and private money. We’ve split it, because we couldn’t justify being totally philanthropic.

What is the vision of the foundation?
I’ve traveled in over 100 countries and I wanted to get involved in conservation, but not in far out places, like Africa, South America or Asia. I’ve known the Scottish natural heritage since I was 20. What I learned in Scotland is that once man has intervened, you never stop intervening.

In 2003 I bought 100 sqkm of land in Scotland and I’ve been restoring that. I’ve planted 800,000 trees, bringing back lost species like wild boars, doing all sorts of different projects, trying to bring some life into a dead zone. So let’s call Scotland a dead zone and let’s call Romania the Eden of Europe. It’s about time that the people of Romania really got it: rather than try to make short-term capital gains out of a standing forest, you need to start thinking about creating an income out of a standing forest. There are many models around the world to copy, and the route that Romania is possibly going down is the industrial West, following all the capitalism and democracy and all the greed it involves. If one can just take a macro-view of the position, look at the rest of the world, what a mess we are in, why would you want to follow that? Romania has got so much wealth that needs to be correctly managed.

So you say it’s a problem of management?
I would say it’s a problem of modeling. You have to choose the right model, and I would choose Costa Rica as a model for eco-tourism. You go to Costa Rica on a promise you’ll see wild forest nature. They have developed a whole industry around that. The focus of the foundation that I run with Hugh Fullerton-Smith is Scotland and Romania, to show the complete two opposite ends of Europe in terms of environment: one is a soggy desert and the other is the garden of Eden. I flew over the Carpathians yesterday, which is the equivalent of the Amazon in Europe, but many people don’t realize it. Look at the forest down there, what’s living in the forests, at the rural communities that can exist within it. You could almost say that the Carpathian Mountains and the part of Transylvania with fortified churches could become a national park. But the image of Romania at the moment is such that people don’t look at it as a place to come and visit. And that’s what we have to change, the surface image.

There are other beautiful parts of Romania, like the Danube Delta.
There is a lot more to see and if this film goes well, next year we will try to do one on the Danube Delta and maybe Maramures. We are obsessed with skiing, with golf, which are not environmentally sensitive. And I think everything in moderation.

When did you shoot the film?
This May. We had fantastic weather conditions, warm, mostly sunshine. I’ve been coming to Romania since 1982, but only since mid 1990 for nature conservation. I was in business before. I was in the furniture business. I was sourcing furniture in days when the Romanian government had very strict controls. Timber would have been brought out by horses, and there would have been 6-7 cubic meters a year out of a hectare. I used to ask for solid oak tables. They would never give in, so in my advertising I couldn’t say solid oak, and thank goodness I didn’t! And thanks to the communist regime and the lack of industrialization that the forest is still standing! When you cut a forest down, it will never re-grow how it used to be, never, never. You never regenerate a forest like it used to be. No way! We all know it regenerates in Romania rather quickly, but one species of trees will take over, while the original forest is a mosaic of trees.

I agree with proper management. One shouldn’t hear the sound of a chainsaw, no hunting. It’s nature! The film is, as I said, primarily educational and to encourage the tourism business. The foundation is hoping that some of the businesspeople that we have invited to the screening tonight will want to engage with some of the projects we have for Romania. We are looking for corporations but we have a lot of private support. I’ve been fundraising from quite wealthy people and a few people have donated lots of money!

What kind of projects do you have?
We are currently buying land, pristine forest and areas of land and making them contiguous to create a national park that will ultimately be given back to the state. We want to build a cottage industry around the forest. I would like to buy half a dozen double-decker busses, fit them out to be mini-forests and drive them to schools in Romania, for school trips in the forest. Another initiative is a computer game based on Farmville, which has already raised GDP 400,000 pounds. It will be all about Romania, and we are planning to launch it next May.

anca.ionita@business-review.ro

Wild Carpathia premieres on the Travel Channel Romania on 30 October and will be repeated over the following days; see www.travelchanneltv.ro for transmission times

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