Century Old Forests and Protected Species’ Habitats are being Destroyed at the “Sinite Kamuni’ National Park

An additional barrier to woodland habitat conservation at the Sinite Kamani National Park is also the long time taken to adopt its management plan, pointed out Aleksandar Duntchef of WWF. Work on the Plan started in 2001, it was proposed in 2003 and has still not been adopted, which makes it pointless. National Park management plans (MPs) are valid for 10 years, after which period they need to be renewed.
The alert reminds that even back in 2011 nature conservationists sent an opinion to the Parliamentary commission for nature conservation, asking for the planned activities to be suspended and for species to be protected. An audit of the park at the end of September 2013 showed that the habitats of Semicollared Flycatcher, Red-breasted Flycatcher and White-backed Woodpecker have been seriously damaged and the deforested area is constantly expanding. It was precisely old hollowed trees which contained the nests of these birds that had been felled. These same locations were found to contain a number of Hawk, European Honey Buzzards and Common Buzzard nesting areas, the alert says.
Toma Belev, of the National Parks Association put forward seven proposals for improving the management and conservation of habitats within national parks:

• To allow publicity and citizen control over the state owned forestry estate. To be clear about what it’s being used for; what activities are being carried out; what the benefit to society is;
• To adopt the national parks’ management plans;
• To adopt the protected zones and habitats orders;
• To limit the use of timber in the national park to maintenance clearing only;
• To limit any clearing for local fuel needs only, through the park management plans;
• To fulfil the Forests Act requirements, by appointing forest rangers at the National Park Directorates;
• To delegate the marking of timber for use as a function of the Nature Parks Directorate, and its use to be by the forestry estates.