Timber Tracking Information System, a Necessity in Forest Protection and Sustainability. SUMAL Information System, an Initiative in Romania

Currently, illegal logging has come to have serious implications for the phenomenon of forest deforestation, thus affecting national and regional economies as well as ecosystems. In order to combat illegal logging and to close markets for illegally sourced timber, some timber-producing countries have started to develop various national timber tracking systems. These complex information systems track the flow of timber from the producer to the final consumer, bringing transparency to timber supply chains, and thus being essential for the good management of forest resources and for the prevention of illegal logging and deforestation. For European countries, the starting point was the European Union Timber Regulation, an important document which made it compulsory to implement forest monitoring technologies. The electronic tools for monitoring the forest situation are in different stages of development and implementation, based not only on legislative and technical rules but also on institutional capacities. In this paper we try to present an original model of electronic monitoring of wood traceability, used by Romania in order to prevent illegal logging and deforestation. It is about the SUMAL electronic system, initiated, improved and used as a tool to combat illegal logging in Romania, in certifying and determining the provenance and application of the EUTR.