site.btaSofia's Only Surviving Wetland to Be Saved by Ministry Order

The Boyana Marsh in Sofia's Boyana Suburb has been recognized as a water body by an order issued by the Environment and Water Ministry's Danube Region Basin Directorate, paving the way to protection of the natural site. The Ministry announced the order on Wednesday, and it was made public on Facebook by the administration of Sofia's Vitosha Borough, where the marsh is located. 

The Boyana Marsh is the only remaining wetland area in the territory of the capital city. So far, the marsh figured as land for building development and not as a water body in Sofia's Masterplan.

The whole 1 ha marsh is private property. The owners tried to dig a trench to drain the marsh, presumably to prepare the land for construction. They insist that it is no marsh but just a swamp that collects rainwater and waste water from the houses in the area.

The wetland is generated by a water spring in a hollow, and there has been a small lake there for centuries that does not drain. "The area is a habitat for various plants and birds," architect Zhorzheta Rafailova of Sofiaplan said. The marsh has always been there, in Boyana's Gardova Glava locality, and has been studied since the 1930s. A petition to save the Boyana Marsh, which is Sofia's last natural habitat for birds, was submitted to Sofia Municipality on November 11, 2022. The petition was initiated by lawyer Vesselin Tonchev and Sofia University lecturer Leonid Todorov, who brought a folder with 1,463 signatures of residents from Boyana and from all over Sofia, requesting the designation of the marsh as a protected area.

At a protest for safeguarding the marsh against construction plans, held in July 2023, Vesselin Tonchev, who founded the Save the Boyana Marsh Facebook group, said that recognizing the marsh as a water body in Sofia's Masterplan would kick-start its further protection. "This is an ecosystem with over 100 protected bird species. It is also very important for the neighbourhood as a reservoir for water from the mountains and rain water, protecting neighbouring built-up areas from flooding," he explained. 

One of the protesters, Alexander Kolev, recalled how they fought an uphill battle earlier in July when they literally had to stand in the way of excavators to thwart what he described as "unlawful attempts to ruin this ecosystem."

Defenders of the marsh hope to have the area converted into a park. "This is only the first step towards protecting the Boyana Marsh from encroachment and building development, but we are confident that the efforts will result in its designation as a protected area and park accessible to the general public," Save the Boyana Marsh wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

According to a research paper of Sofiaplan, ensuring the long-term existence of the marsh and keeping its ecological functions requires its designation as a protected area (as defined by the Protected Areas Act), which would include both the marsh itself and the adjoining undeveloped shore within a buffer of at least 100 metres. Any other measures, such as converting the area into an urban park or permitting partial building development, can only slow down the ecosystem's degradation but would be pointless in the long term. If designating a protected area within city limits is impossible, however, the alternative should be converting the area into parkland complete with the imposition of certain restrictions, mandatorily banning subsequent building development within a perimeter of at least 100 m around the marsh itself.