The State loses millions of Euro from swaps of forests, and subsequently loses the forests themselves
Perelik, the Rodopi mountain 
According to the economic analysis executed by coalition “Let nature remains in Bulgaria” the State has lost between 300 and 900 million euro for a period of 25 days only, as a result of swaps of forests that it conducted in the month of May 2008.
In July 2008, “Let nature remains in Bulgaria” submitted an official appeal to the European Commission claiming breach of Article 87 of the EC Treaty that does not allow State aid in damage of competition and the common market in Europe. In addition to harming nature, society and State, this mechanism is in practice aid from the State to certain firms and close to the government subjects.
In the words of Kostadin Valchev, expert from Balkani Wildlife Society, the prices of forest lots, which the State swaps for private ones, are more than 10 times lower than the real market price of the forest property in the region of the swaps.
In the words of Stefan Avramov from Biodiversity Foundation, during the period April 30 – May 25 the State Forest Agency has effected non-market swaps of 12,800 decares (1 decare=1,000 sq.m.) of the forest fund situated mostly along the Black Sea coast, in Borovets, Pamporovo and Perelik with 35,000 decares private and municipal forests mainly in North Bulgaria and the Rodopi mountain. According to not confirmed information from the media, the biggest beneficiaries are legal persons, owned by Hristo Kovachki, Todor Batkov, Grisha Ganchev, Kiril Asenov, Nikola Kaloyanov and others.
After the quick reaction from the European Commission, the Bulgarian government is looking for new ways of selling out Bulgarian forests through amendments in the Forest Law. This provoked new protests from nature advocates and citizens.
Translation from Bulgarian: Tsvetan Ivanov