In response to the text "Neighbors protect their forests and warm themselves with Montenegrin wood", the Ministry of Agriculture did not fundamentally deny any of the stated facts or data.
Over the past five years, Montenegro has exported firewood worth 32 million euros, and under firewood in the voluminous customs label there are also pellets. And we export it mostly to neighboring countries, which have introduced bans or restrictions on cutting down forests and exporting those products in order to protect their forests and use raw materials in a better way.
They can also cut down their forests and produce pellets in Kosovo, without having to import it for 6,6 million euros from Montenegro, but they admitted that their forest wealth is threatened and that they should preserve it for the development of the furniture industry, which in total it brings more money to the economy and employs more people.
Two years ago, Bosnia and Herzegovina passed restrictions on the export of raw and sawn timber and firewood. They did this because their export of these raw materials and semi-products grew to 35 percent of the total export of the wood industry. They were ashamed that they were wasting so much forest on products with a low level of processing. These same products account for more than 90 percent of Montenegrin wood industry exports, and the Montenegrin ministry is proud of it.
Last year, the total export of the wood industry of Bosnia and Herzegovina amounted to about 750 million euros, and that of Montenegro 36 million. The forest wealth of Bosnia and Herzegovina is seven times greater than that of Montenegro, but their exports are 21 times greater, and they cover most domestic needs.
Furniture exports from BiH alone are worth 260 million euros. It is not possible to determine how much furniture is exported from Montenegro because it is under a comprehensive customs label - "furniture, bedding, mattresses, mattress supports, pillows and similar stuffed products; lamps and other luminous bodies, not elsewhere specified or included; illuminated signs, illuminated plaques with names and similar, prefabricated buildings", which last year was worth a total of 1,2 million euros.
The Ministry says that the ban on the export of raw wood from April 2017 is still in effect. That is true, and "Vijesti" announced that five months later the ban on the export of firewood was lifted. This decision was then and later changed several times. The data of the Ministry also show that there is still export of raw wood, on a much smaller scale. As a rule, pellets should be made from waste wood and sawdust from the wood industry. There are environmentalists' doubts that it is made from whole trees because this amount of annual export of nine million could not be achieved otherwise. One of the Montenegrin pellet producers boasts on its website that it is made "from pure beech wood from the mountain massifs of Montenegro".
Goran Kapor
Related Articles
Bonus video:
