BULGARIA: Bulgarian government expected to pass special law to protect park

Environmentalists in Bulgaria are waiting to see if the government will intervene to stop a Supreme Court ruling revoking protection of a national park. Bulgaria's Environment Ministry is to fight a Supreme Court decision revoking the protected status of a Black Sea nature park, a ruling that opens a door to the construction of holiday homes. The country's Supreme Court cited irregularities in the way officials originally drew up the boundaries for the Strandzha Park as the reason for ending the area's special status. The decision has drawn ire from a coalition of conservationists and national figures worried Bulgaria's countryside is falling prey to a property boom fuelled in part by foreign demand for cheap second homes. Architect Rositsa Zlatanova, who joined protests against the Supreme Court's decision, said she feared any developments on national park land would nark a precedent that would be hard to stop. "If the order for establishing the park is proclaimed worthless by the court a second time, I feel that most of the park's value will be lost forever, even if the government issued a re-establishing order for less territory. Also I am afraid that the beach area will be filled by concrete too," she said. 17 environment organisations have clubbed together to protest the ruling, callig it a "farce, which aims to wipe out the protected territories in the name of corporate and private interests," and protesting on the streets of Sofia. "It is extremely important to defend the park from every kind of violation, even relatively small ones like the removal of five percent of it's territory, which was the recent proposal by the mayor of Tsarevo, Petko Arnaudov. Because this will be a precedent and will open the door for the next five percent and so on, not only in Strandzha, but in all parks. It is very important not to start biting pieces from the territory of the parks, because sooner or later it will be over," said activist Yana Punkina. Fellow protester Petko Kovachev said it was time to strengthen the laws protecting national parks. "The people who protest should continue to push the institutions to take the right decisions, to reaffirm the Bulgarian network of protected areas and to stop all these initiatives for closing of protected areas by comprehensive legislation," he said. Police arrested 35 people after 200 protestors blocked a major roadway in Sofia to demonstrate over the court ruling. But municipal authorities in Strandzha, on the southeast edge of Bulgaria bordering Turkey and the Black Sea, and a property developer who has illegally built holiday apartments in the region, support the change of the park's status. Petko Arnaudov, mayor of the Tsarevo municipality affected by the decision, said strict national park laws were stopping villages from developing. "They established "Strandzha Park" here, but there are many villages in this park - just in Tsarevo municipality there are five or six villages in the park area. And it is not fair that all territory, which is not regulated and part of the village, is to be deprived of development," he said. A land owner in the area, Stoyan Iliev, insists they have the right for some urbanization of their own land, and said investors would be sure not to overdevelop the area. "We proposed a very nice plan for construction - only 20 percent density for buildings, we do not want to become a new Sunny Beach." Critics said the court ruling not only contained factual mistakes, but were also symbolic of the way Bulgaria's judicial system works. The European Union, which Bulgaria joined in January, has repeatedly criticized Sofia for insufficient judicial reform and lack of vigour in fighting corruption. Strandzha, home to the endangered Strandjanian blueberry and oak tree, Istanbul chickpeas, Crimean tea and the monk seal, is also where an ancient Balkan tradition, fire dancing, still survives. But now it's supporters must wait and see if the government will intervene.

ITN Source | July 18, 2007

Tags:. .turkey. .illegally. .sunny. .reform. .supreme