Protected areas are terrestrial or aquatic surfaces specially designed to protect and maintain the biodiversity, natural resources and related cultural resources. In Romania there are 16 natural parks: Apuseni (Alba County, Bihor and Cluj), Porțile De Fier (Caraș-Severin County and Mehedinți), Grădiștea Muncelului-Cioclovina (Hunedoara county), Bucegi (Argeș county, Brașov, Dâmbovița and Prahova), Balta Mică a Brăilei (Brăila County), Vânători Neamț (Neamț County), Lunca Mureșului (Arad County and Timiș), Lunca Joasă a Prutului Inferior (Galați County), Comana (Giurgiu County), Dinosaur Geopark Țara Hațegului (Hunedoara county), Maramureș Mountains (Maramureș County), Plateau Mehedinți Geopark (Mehedinți County), Putna-Vrancea (Vrancea County), The Superior Mureș Gorge (Mureș County), Cefa (Bihor County), Văcărești (Bucharest). Maramures Mountains Natural Park is a protected area of national interest, which corresponds to the 5th category of IUCN (terrestrial landscape herbal park), being a protected area in which the interaction between humans and nature over time has produced an area with a distinctive character, with ecological, biological, cultural and aesthetic value. The massive deforestation in Maramureș Mountains Natural Park led us to analyze the evolution of the park using satellite images, so we chose the reference data from the past 20 years. The satellite images clearly show how the forest has been exploited. The EU set the goal to halt the loss of biodiversity in Natura 2000 protected areas by 2020, but a few months before the deadline, the images show the total destruction a vast surface near the park and its protected area.

Protected areas, biodiversity, natural resources, International Union for Conservation of Nature, deforestation, satellite images

environmental engineering

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