As a country, Romania tries to communicate abroad its authenticity, intact nature and unique cultural heritage. This message matches perfectly the main attributes associated to Rodna Mountains National Park, as it is the second national park in Romanian. The aim of the research is to identify and analyze the prospects for sustainable development of rural tourism in the area of Rodna Mountains National Park, taking into account its impact on the social and economic life of the inhabitants of the Rodna commune, but also factors that may positively or negatively influence the whole process. From a methodological perspective, quantitative methods were used; a survey-based research was carried out among Romanian mountain tourists, aiming at identifying and analyzing their opinions and suggestions regarding tourism in protected areas in Romania, as well as the impact of the tourist flows generated by the Park upon the surrounding communities. Rodna Mountains National Park seems to be among the favorite destinations of tourists, as the respondents have a good and very good general impression about the interaction with the mountain and protected areas, prefer internal to external destinations regardless of the season, budgets allocated per night, per stay and annually are quite high, so the purchasing power is also high; they constitute a solid foundation for the decisions of the tourist development of the area. The need for holidays and the savings that tourists make throughout the year to go on vacation, regardless of income level, give viability to this opportunity. Other results of this research are related to the problems tourists helped to identify and the solutions they proposed.

This study aims to reveal the connection between corruption and shadow economy, on one hand, and deforestation, on the other. The research considers 131 countries from all over the world, in the timeframe between the years 2012 and 2020, and it reveals that corruption and shadow economy positively influence deforestation. Determinants like democratic governance quality, press freedom, wood export share, and culture are also key factors in implementing the right, efficient countermeasures aimed at reducing the levels of illegal deforestation and sustainably managing the forestland. The importance of this study is to provide a solid quantitative basis to decision-makers that come across this problem of illegal logging through a better, fact-based understanding of the phenomenon.

The aim of this study is to present the trends and effectiveness of money laundering countermeasures from the perspective of a number of suspicious transactions reported to the Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs), a number of analysis results submitted to law enforcement authorities, and the typologies of cases in European Union Member States. In order to determine the impact of the joint effort in the fight against money laundering, we used descriptive statistics to process the data and case studies from annual reports of the European FIUs for 2018 and 2019. The results of our study highlight the increase in the number of suspicious transactions notices, as well as in their quality level. There is an increasing tendency towards information exchange between European Union countries regarding the suspicion of money laundering, but there is no stable trend for referring cases to law enforcement and other responsible institutions. Based on the available data, it can be concluded that the EU anti money laundering measures are efficient, but further steps are needed to achieve higher international coordination and cooperation.

Wood represents one of the most used natural resources: from construction to musical instruments, tools, toys, fuel, shipbuilding, and, not to mention, stationery, as it is indispensable for modern society. Europe has important wood resources, but for some countries, their sustainable exploitation is at least questionable. However, other countries prefer to monetize their natural resources by developing a competitive tourism industry. In this study, an analysis of European countries in terms of corruption, deforestation, and tourism is undertaken, in order to approach and discuss the specific characteristics and to identify the factors that determine a country to manage its natural resources in a sustainable way. The methodology used is quantitative, employing secondary data, resulting in different ways of data visualization. The main finding is that low levels of corruption and high levels of tourism competitiveness are associated with countries that manage their forests in a sustainable way. This confirms the research question: Competitive European destinations that enjoy the presence of well-established sustainable tourism products have managed to reduce the level of corruption and implement developed environmental policies, including forestland protection. The practical outcome of this paper is to point towards a long-term solution to decrease deforestation. In summary, sustainable development of the tourism sector must be part of the long-term initiatives to reduce the levels of illegal deforestation.