The project for new management plan of Pirin National park includes 333 km of ski slopes and 28 times increase of the timber extraction

Tomorrow, 27.11.2014, “Proles” which is responsible for the development of the new Management plan of Nature park Vitosha organizes a workshop at a golf-club located in the vicinity of the city of Razlog. Part 1- “Description and valuation of National park Pirin ” from the project’s plan will be presented at the workshop.
Today, l at 13.00 h all the documentation on the basis of which the workshop will be held is still not presented on the web page of the executor - “Proles engineering” ltd. This fact is not in vavour of the NGOs because they need the documentation in order to be able to prepare for the workshop and to be able to elaborate a sound position and statement towards the plan.
Certain parts from the volumes which will be subjects of discussion are missing (p.1.23 and p. 1.24). Significant part of the information is uploaded during the last 2 days and the volume up to now is 419 pages. The remaining time till the workshop is extremely insufficient to read all that material.
The quick review of part of the documents available through theweb page of “Proles” draws the attention to the fact that the new plan aims at rejecting the current operative Management plan of National park Pirin from the year 2004 instead of building up and improving the management of the Park
The representatives of the coalition “For the nature in Bulgaria” and the initiative “Transparent mountains” will take part in the workshop. The representatives are strongly concerned with the exclusion of the stakeholders from the processes of development and discussion of the plan.
Although Pirin is a park of national importance and is also a UNESCO world heritage site, no conduction of discussions in the biggest Bulgarian towns where a lot of people could participate are foreseen.
In the presented invitation to the parties involved an event which will be held today is included, but the invitation is directed only to “experts” in order to secure the conduction of the event on an “expert level”. The discussion is part of the program and is part of the invitation send to the stakeholders but at the same time it turns out that the discussion is practically closed for them. It turns out that from 93 invited people 37 are “less invited”- only for the second day. The fact that the Bulgarian Academy of Science is not inivited to participate in the discussion is also incomprehensible. The program is scheduled in a way that actually makes the conduction of a real discussion and presentation of argumentations impossible.. 100 minutes are provided for discussion on the abiotic factors, biological characterization, cultural and social-economic characteristic and first level assessment of the park.
The protection of the of the national and world heritage of Pirin guarantees the long-term sustainable development of the region. The participation in the elaboration of the new plan for management of the National park of Pirin with a statement or a proposal is an obligation for each citizen who is interested in the Pirin’s fortune.

Therefore the coalition “For the nature in Bulgaria” welcomes the initiative of “Transparent mountains ” which mission is to inspire and support the civic action for management of the mountain resources in Bulgaria. The platform: http://prozrachniplanini.org provides possibility to get acquainted with the texts for the management of the National Park Pirin in comprehensible language and each user is welcome to provide his or her proposals.