Journal of Danubian Studies and Research, Vol 8, No 1 (2018)

Abstract

The concept of “natural capital” of a certain geographical space, of an administrative entityrepresents the network of natural, manmade or even anthropic ecosystems, with the functioning of theanthropic ones being directly or indirectly connected to the first two categories of ecosystems. Thehierarchical components of natural capital are the genetic diversity, the specific diversity and theecosystem diversity. According to the UN, biodiversity is defined as “the variability of the livingorganisms from all sources, including, amongst others, the terrestrial, the marine ecosystems as well asother aquatic ecosystems and of the ecologic complexes they are part of; it includes the diversity withinspecies, “between the species and the ecosystems”. The services provided by ecosystems are essentialto the Human Socio-Economic System. Merely starting with the 90’s, a large interest is gaining shapeat the European and also global level, regarding the biodiversity and the sustainable development.Though, in Romania, there has been a socio-economic interest for the conservation of different issuesof the biologic diversity, things have been neglected in the years of socialism, when the short termeconomic interest used to play the main role. Especially starting with 2007, as Romania reentered theEuropean path, the conservation and the protection of biodiversity has been carried out through thebuilding, at national level, of an area of protected areas including various categories, which has beenintegrated within the one at the level of the EU. The legal framework has been modified to this extend,being in accordance to the one of the EU. Though it is known, at a declarative and legal level, that theareas in a natural or semi-natural regime represent the basis of the socio-economic development of eachadministrative entity, there are also various threats to the biodiversity in many areas of Romania.Considering the fact that Romania enjoys the existence of a unique biodiversity within Europe, both atthe ecosystems’ and species’ level and at the genetic one too, it is clearer that the conservation ofbiodiversity is not only a national, but also a continental interest. Sustainable economic developmentcannot be reached excepting this desire.