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Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

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Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#111

Post by budududuroiu »

bad_user wrote: post #73
budududuroiu wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pros (imo): Daily essentials not-yet commodified, can access amazing produce for cheap. Geopolitically stable, crime is mostly petty or white collar. Nature. Cons (imo): no progressive tax rate, effective ~50% tax on income unless you want to do tax evasion (Romanian past-time), very likely to die on the road as public transit is in a state of disrepair, choice of healthcare between expensive and inefficient private…

Not having a progressive tax is a feature, not a bug. If a progressive tax would be introduced, I'd either start avoid taxes in any way possible, or I'd seriously think about emigration. Because yes, the rich always finds ways to evade taxes, while the middle class gets screwed. And I'm also not interested in subsidizing the poor. The total taxes you pay on a regular work contract are around 41.5%, and much of that g…

Pensions in Romania are a joke, ask your relatives that recently retired.

Can I remind you that out of the immediate survivors of the Colectiv fire, 70% of them contracted hospital-acquired infections? (Which were conveniently overlooked by the coroner) Private healthcare is a hoax that most employers can and will redirect their contribution to, further increasing the hole in which the public sector is getting into.

Bribery isn’t less common, it’s just becoming increasingly inaccessible to common folk. Police is still in cahoots with “businessmen”. Health and safety authorisations are still handed out like hotcakes to the ones in the inner circle. -> https://www.romania-insider.com/investigations-and-dismissal...

Our malls are full but industry is dead. We’re a consumer economy

We’re part of NATO, oh so proud of it, yet barely scrape together an impotent 1.6% of GDP for our defence. Our navy is in such bad state that in NATO joint exercises foreign soldiers training with us thought our ship was on fire (it wasn’t, just badly maintained and burning with a thick black smoke).

I also find it funny that you say we “avoided communists” and “home ownership is high” in the same breath. I wonder why home ownership is that high, and what policy lead to that.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#112

Post by exe34 »

nottorp wrote: post #46
keiferski wrote: post #36

Of particular note is that there are a ton of bears in Romania, much more than in other European countries, with something like 60% of all European brown bears. [0] Glad to see that someone is attempting to preserve this. 0. https://www.mossy.earth/rewilding-knowledge/romanias-brown-b...

There are more bears than the land can sustain. Go to any tourist (or non tourist) spot in the mountains and they'll come down and steal from your garbage in town . Look up Brasov. It's a reasonably large touristic town and it regularly gets bears at the periphery.

Are you sure it's the bears that are invading or is it the monkeys with their stick technology?

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#113

Post by bwanab »

miahi wrote: post #97
larrik wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a regular town in Connecticut and I have bears attack my garbage regularly, so I'm not convinced that's all that weird.

Unfortunately, Romanian bears are brown bears (Ursus arctos), not black (Ursus americanus). They are not easily scared by people and encounters with them can be very dangerous.

I understand the difference, but if you find yourself inadvertently getting between a black bear and her cubs, I think you'll find they can be very dangerous, also.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#114

Post by ReleaseCandidat »

keiferski wrote: post #36

Of particular note is that there are a ton of bears in Romania, much more than in other European countries, with something like 60% of all European brown bears. [0] Glad to see that someone is attempting to preserve this. 0. https://www.mossy.earth/rewilding-knowledge/romanias-brown-b...

> much more than in other European countries, with something like 60% of all European brown bears.

There are about 5000 (even it it were 10,000) in Romania, which is way less than 50% of the european population. https://www.euronatur.org/en/what-we-do/bear-wolf-lynx/bears...

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#115

Post by generic92034 »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #90
generic92034 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Over billions of years, every single species alive displaced some other species, multiple times over. I can mostly agree with the rest of your points. But how many species are killing off thousands of other species in such a short time frame?

And that's absolutely an argument I will support! and very much do care about. It's just a fundamentally different argument to "Well clearly , arbitrary species A here at some arbitrary time B is the natural and morally right owner of these lands".

As long as this is not seen as justification to displace any other species just when we feel like it (because they probably displaced some other species), I can agree.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#116

Post by alistairSH »

giantg2 wrote: post #30
TulliusCicero wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a frequent reader of r/europe, Americans have FAR from the worst reputation for tourists within Europe, it's not even close. At least among larger countries, they might actually have a better than average rep.

I'd love to see the research behind that. I don't know where Americans rank, but I wouldn't guess we rank high.

Personal experience from travel in Iceland, Peru, UK (mostly Scotland), and Italy. Obviously generalizations and anecdotes, so take with a grain of salt.

Americans often stand out. Look more "touristy" - wearing shorts, goofy bags, unstylish footwear, etc. Most likely to ask "what do you do?" (for a living). Not rude, but can be more boisterous/social than some others.

Chinese - tend to travel in large tour groups. Frequently dressed poorly for conditions (Jimmy Choo shoes while touring Icelandic waterfalls). Disembark from buses and race to get a selfie before the rest of the crowd. Not purposefully rude, but the sheer number/concentration of them makes them stand out.

Europeans are generally don't stand out. Usually dress the least obviously touristy. Usually happy to make chit-chat, but less likely to initiate than US-Americans.

And stupid people come from all backgrounds. While in Iceland, there was an Asian fellow who insisted on sticking his hand into the geysers, despite warning signs in ~8 languages. Same trip, some German teens ran out onto an icy lake, despite signs warning of falling through the ice. And at the big waterfalls, there were people from all races/nationalities jumping fences to get better shots for their Insta feeds.

My personal pet peeve is people who litter or otherwise ruin natural beauty. And again, they come in all shapes, sizes, colors, creeds, etc.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#117

Post by keiferski »

ReleaseCandidat wrote: post #114
keiferski wrote: post #36

Of particular note is that there are a ton of bears in Romania, much more than in other European countries, with something like 60% of all European brown bears. [0] Glad to see that someone is attempting to preserve this. 0. https://www.mossy.earth/rewilding-knowledge/romanias-brown-b...

> much more than in other European countries, with something like 60% of all European brown bears. There are about 5000 (even it it were 10,000) in Romania, which is way less than 50% of the european population. https://www.euronatur.org/en/what-we-do/bear-wolf-lynx/bears...

I don't see any numbers in the link you provided.

Edit: I looked again and I think you're referring to the image. It looks like the link I referenced was excluding Russia. Romania does seem to have 60% of bears everywhere in Europe west of Russia and parts of Finland and Estonia.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#118

Post by [deleted] »

Fricken wrote: post #56

>Several years ago, 80 bison were reintroduced two centuries after their disappearance from these territories... I had no idea there were bison in Europe. The provided hyperlink leads to an article about bison being reintroduced in Mexico. Here is an appropriate article about bison being rewilded in the Southern Carpathians: https://rewildingeurope.com/blog/free-roaming-bison-populati... .

[deleted]

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#119

Post by keiferski »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #72
Rinzler89 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they'll come down and steal from your garbage in town You mean their home? Bears were there before humans settled and built towns. IMHO can't really complain about bears wehen you're the on encroaching on their turf, not the other way around.

I never understand these arguments. You mean mastodon home,surely? They were there before bears! How about pterodactyl? How far do we go / where do we arbitrarily draw the line? I am all for ecology, preservation, being in sync with nature etc, but I find fundamentally flawed and dishonest arguments like these don't contribute to the cause. Over billions of years, every single species alive displaced some other speci…

The point of this argument is to compare humans with animals they replaced, not animals with other animals, because the assumption is that we, as humans, are ethically capable of engaging with this kind of question in the first place. I don't think anyone is arguing that "the land belongs to the bears and no one else."

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#120

Post by hnbad »

aix1 wrote: post #77
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #61

The more the better, but there's already a "European Yellowstone" in the form of Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park in Belarus, of similar size, home to many of the remaining European buffalo.

I'm guessing you mean the bison. (At least that's what Belovezhskaya Pushcha is known for, other than being the largest area of primeval forest in Europe.)

Correct. Buffalo and wisent are both bison.
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