Sofia, 14 July 2010 – The coalition of NGOs and civil society groups “For the Nature” sent a position on the bill for a new Law on forests made available for public discussion on the webpage of the Executive Forest Agency on 9 July 2010.
Despite the fact that some of the previous proposals of the NGO coalition have been adopted, a number of dangerous ideas that threaten the Bulgarian protected natural areas have also sneaked into the text.
* The bill for a new Law on forests establishes one more way for building up the protected natural areas and zones through the regulation for the building-up of forest areas without a change in purpose for lifts, tow-lifts, and wind-generation and photovoltaic installations (art. 53, p. 3&5). In that way, construction unrelated to forest management activities is encouraged.
* The bill establishes the possibility of selling state property that is a part of the protected areas (paragraphs 6&16 of the provisional and permanent regulations). In the last 75 years, many times the Bulgarian state has purchased private land in order to protect the nature, but not once has it happened that the state would sell protected natural areas. This proposal is a huge step backwards in the GERB policy and contradicts its election promises of putting an end to the despoliation of the state.
* It is being proposed that the nature parks, which represent the biggest protected natural area in Bulgaria, be handed over to the municipalities. The existing examples of the municipalities’ attitude toward nature parks regard predominantly attempts for their annulment and building-up – municipality Tsarevo and Nature Park Strandja, municipality Sliven and Nature Park Sinite Kamuni. These attempts have generated significant civil society opposition. The idea is obviously unacceptable at this stage of development of the municipalities.
* It is dangerous to transfer the implementation of the protected areas management plans from the nature park administrations to the state forest enterprises and the control of activities to the regional forest agencies. This would stop entirely the implementation of the management plans in the agricultural land and forest territories that are private and municipal property. Until this moment, there has been no information that even a single state forestry or hunting reserve has implemented at least one part whatsoever of adopted protected area management plans.
* Opportunities are being created for limiting the access of citizens to forests and protected areas at the request of private persons that carry out activities in the state forests.
These proposals leave the impression that the bill on forests caters to lobbyist interests for building-up of the nature parks – the plans for a new ski zone in Nature Park Vitosha of “Vitosha Ski” JSC and the lobbying in this regard of the First Investment Bank shareholder Tseko Minev, as well as the openly declared plans for the building up of the Nature Park Sinite Kamuni of the Sliven mayor Yordan Lechkov.
There were similar attempts to change the laws in order to build up and sell off the Bulgarian forests in March 2005 and January 2009. Then, more than 100 000 signatures against any changes were introduced and the 39th and 40th National Assembly rejected those proposals.
According to sociological surveys, the proposals for forest protection, cessation of the swaps, and preservation of the protected areas against building-up and selling off are supported by the majority of Bulgarian citizens. The hope remains that they would be included in the bill before its introduction in the Council of Ministers.
Translated by: Margarita Petrova