Legal regulation of truffle sector in the Republic of Serbia

Abstract

General Laws on nature protection of Serbia (competent Ministry for Nature Protection) passively regulate fungi by regulating protection of the environment, biodiversity, diversity of ecosystems or landscapes in the country, in a way that should meet the requirements of the EU legislation system. The direct regulation of issues related to truffles is found in Rulebook on the declaration and protection of strictly protected and protected wild species of plants, animals and mushrooms and Decision on the determination of goods for which import, export, or transit requires the obtainment of certain documents. The truffle species included in these two documents are Tuber magnatum, Tuber aestivum and Tuber macrosporum. The Law on Forests, issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry directly treats mushrooms in two articles, one forbids collection of any secondary forest products, unless stated differently by that same Law, while other allows collection of secondary forest products only upon approval of the forest manager. It is not stated how these two articles were correlated with Rulebook and Decision of Law on nature Protection that refer to wild mushrooms including truffles. Apart from legal regulation in the commercial sense, there is absolutely no in purpose legal protection of the areas and ecosystems where truffles naturally occur. Without adequate protection of forest ecosystems that contain truffle species, there is a risk of losing these commercially important species. Establishment of truffle plantations is not regulated by any legal act, why the amendment of existing legislation is necessery in order to enable the developement of the entire truffles sector in the country.