Tulcea's plan: From barren lands to the largest urban forest in Romania

The Danube Delta municipality is to surround itself with even more nature

The Romanian city of Tulcea is primarily known as the Gateway to the Danube Delta, a spectacular ecosystem that combines land and aquatic wildlife with miles upon miles of waterways, reeds and marshes. It’s the largest river delta in Europe (if you don’t count the one of the Russian Volga River).

Now, however, the city has plans to also become home to the largest urban forest in Romania, an entirely different ecosystem but an important one, nevertheless.

The local government has picked seven empty or abandoned land plots with a total area of 61.42 hectares to be planted with almost 2.5 million saplings. As a result, Tulcea will acquire an intermittent green belt around its residential areas at a distance of no more than 500 metres from the urban perimeter.

“We are talking about a new type of forest, on a fairly large area that we want in the future to represent one of the lungs of Tulcea municipality and contribute to our city not being just the gateway to the Delta Danube, but also a green city, free of pollution and with forests to ensure the population a natural lifestyle", declared Ştefan Ilie, the mayor of Tulcea, quoted by Ziaru Delta.

Green recovery with European funds

The large-scale environmental project will become a reality through the EU-backed National Recovery and Resilience Facility (PNRR). At a press conference, the Romanian Minister of the Environment, Mircea Fechet, expressed a sense of pride and even surprise at the ambitious lead taken by Tulcea.

“When we were discussing the guide, we expected the mayors to allocate one hectare, two hectares, five hectares. We would not have thought that there would be such ambitious mayors who would come up with a proposal of over 60 hectares,” he said.

The cost of creating the Tulcea urban forest has a price tag of 5.83 million euros. The environment ministry has set aside 30 million euros from the European funds for this sort of initiative in Romanian cities.