Octavian Berchanu

Former Environmental Officer – Bucharest, Romania

Octavian Berceanu, a former commissioner for the Romanian environmental police is now a climate activist who tracks down waste smugglers. “These are organized crime structures!” he says.

He partakes in “Reforestation without official permission, as sand is overrunning Oltenia, a historical region in southern Romania. It’s getting hotter and drier, with sandstorms now reaching all the way to Bucharest. As they try to prevent the worst, environmentalists are turning to reforestation. The effects of climate change can be clearly seen and felt in the Romanian region of Oltenia. Where once green meadows and forests lined the banks of the River Danube, swathes of sand are now expanding. The area in question now covers more than 800 square kilometers along the Danube. Wind blows sand into villages, and even as far as the capital, Bucharest, more than 200 kilometers away.

Bucharest lawmaker and environmental activist Octavian Berceanu travels regularly to the region, in order to discover the main causes of the desertification. Together with forestry engineer Dan Popescu, he wants to convince locals and officials to plant new trees in fields that have become unusable. Farmers can hardly grow any crops in the sandy soil. Even undemanding cereals like corn no longer find sufficient nutrients there. Desperate farmers are now mainly growing even less demanding melon crops.

“We are like Don Quixote’s…we have to fight a lot to maintain biodiversity.”

Website: Instagram

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OctavianBerceanuUSR

Video 1) Climate Change in Romania