A former forester convicted of illegal logging and currently being investigated for illegal hunting leads the Bihar (Bihor in Romanian) County branch of the National Agency for Protected Zones, Hungarian news portal Főtér.ro reports. The agency, subordinated to the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests, is responsible for Romania’s national parks and reservations.
Remus Raț became the manager of the county branch of the agency in 2019. In February of 2019, he was employed as advocate general at the agency after he successfully completed the competitive examination used when hiring public servants. However, Mr. Raț had to wait only two months before being appointed the head of the county branch – without any further examination.
Based on his job experience, Remus Raț could be considered a perfect candidate since he worked as a forester, but his career was quite short. In March of 2006, he was hired by the Greek Catholic Church to protect their forests in Belényes (Beiuș). In October of 2006, he was fired right after the police found him and three other men stealing from the forest he was supposed to be protecting. Raț was later convicted for timber theft.
Later, he got a job at the Territorial Inspectorate of Forestry and Hunting in Bihar, the current Nagyvárad (Oradea) Forest Guard, becoming, ironically, a forest policeman. However, he did not stay here long either: He was convicted in a criminal case and, for this reason, was fired. However, Remus Raț was not discouraged, finding yet another job in forestry, as well as in the public sphere, this time at the National Institute for Research and Development in Forestry in Marin Drăcea; he specialized in forestry research.
As time passed, the timber theft was deleted from his criminal record due to the statute of limitations, so in 2018, he wanted to return to the Forest Guard, but with no luck. Raț also applied to a position at the National Agency of Protected Zones in 2019, which he got.
However, at the beginning of 2021, he became entangled once again with the police, after he was caught skinning a deer on the hunting grounds in Várasfenes (Finiş), where he had received permission to shoot only wild boars.
Called in for hearings, the head of the agency in Bihar County presented an authorization for hunting deer, signed by the former PSD county councilor Ştefan Dulău, the administrator of a hunting fund in Tenke (Tinca). However, the paper did not convince the Belényes Prosecutor’s Office, who deemed it a fake and started a criminal investigation against Raț for illegal hunting.
Remus Raț denies the accusations, stating that he did not steal timber, as only a few trunks were missing from the forest entrusted to him. As to the case of illegal hunting, Raț said that he in fact participated in not one but two hunting trips: one for deer and one for wild boars.
Title image: Being convicted for timber theft did not discourage Remus Raț, who has worked for several public forestry companies over the years. Photo: főtér.ro
