site.btaProposed Management Plan Paves Way to Development, Logging and Hunting in Vitosha Nature Park - Environmentalists

Proposed Management Plan Paves Way to Development, Logging and Hunting in Vitosha Nature Park - Environmentalists

Sofia, October 1 (BTA) - A proposed 10-year management plan "opens the door wide" to development, logging and hunting in the territory of the Vitosha Nature Park, the For the Nature coalition of environmental organizations said in a statement. They argue that the activities allowed by the new plan are identical with those for non-protected territories and essentially make meaningless the "nature park" designation.

Vitosha is the oldest nature park in the Balkans, For the Nature say. They insist that the plan should be sent back to its authors to be re-written.

The controversial plan is prepared by Proles Engineering which has won a public procurement contract to make it.

For the Nature argue that the plan scraps the existing protection regime and increases the area where construction of buildings and various facilities is allowed to over 4,000 ha from the current 300. This makes an increase of more than 13 times.

Almost the entire nothern section of Mt Vitosha will be divided into zones where the priority is not nature protection but urbanization and construction of sports facilities.

The proposed plan addresses none of the problems in the nature park: the lack of adequate access to the mountain, the combination of various types of tourism, the pollution of the water, large-scale logging and inadequate tourist infrastricture, the environmentalists further argue.

They believe that the focus in preparing the management plan has been to allow the construction of a new skiing resort.

Earlier this week For the Nature held a public debate on the future of Mt. Vitosha with the participation of representatives of various political forces and civic groups. They rallied around the idea that no new construction should be allowed in the nature park.

Among the participants were representatives of GERB, the Reformist Bloc, the Serdika coalition, NFSB, DEOS and the Greens.

In a summary on the debate, For the Nature says that parties both in and outside the local govenrment spoke critical words about the present situation in the nature park and any plans for construction there, and called for scrapping the privatization contracts for the cable lifts which have been left inoperative.