01/04/2021 (Agence Europe) – WWF Romania has launched a video surveillance tool to monitor transportation of timber from forests, which could help authorities to significantly reduce illegal logging by prioritising and improving the effectiveness of their checks, announced WWF CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) on Thursday 1 April. An infringement proceeding launched by the European Commission in February 2020 against the Romanian authorities had noted that there were insufficient checks and a lack of effective controls when timber is first placed on the market – controls that are not geographically representative and do not follow established priority criteria – as well as the absence of any effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions. (AN)