Representatives of Transparent Mountains will take part into the activities of the expert working groups to the Ministry of Agriculture and Foods

The petition was accepted by the deputy minister himself associate professor Georgi Kostov and after that a short working meeting between the submitters and the ministry experts took place. A next meeting to be held was agreed when all requests in the petition to be discussed in detail. Representatives of Transparent Mountains will participate into the forthcoming meeting of the working group to the Executive Forestry Agency for discussion of the Ordinance for taking an inventory of the forests.

Associate professor Georgi Kostov presented the actions of the Ministry so far in the sphere of forest conservation. Part of them include announcement of protected forest territories, measures for struggle with the illegal felling such as introducing electronic tickets, plastic rings, doing community service for offenders of the Forests Law who do not pay their fines. The representatives of Transparent Mountains Andrey Kovachev and Andrey Ralev gave full support to all actions so far undertaken by the Ministry of Agriculture and Foods.

During the meeting it was found that some of the requests in the petition have already place into measures implemented by the Ministry. Mobile teams to the Regional Forestry Offices have been formed for control of the activities in the forests – one of the important anti-corruption requests. The mobile teams check places which are out their living areas, thus conflicts of interest and potential corruption links are avoided. This measure has really led to increase of the efficiency of the carried out checks. On the meeting was shared the opinion that these teams have been assessed as economically more effective method compared to restoring the permanent forest points, which is another request in the petition. For this reason they were preferred at this stage.

Other two very important proposals in the petition about the control of the infringements are not of the single competency of the Ministry of Agriculture and Foods. One of the proposals, separating of the Executive Forestry Agency from the Ministry, is aimed at ensuring full independence of the control body from the authority which governs the resource. The other request is a percentage of the imposed sanctions to go into the control body forming the payment of the inspectors. The discussion of these measures will continue on the following working meetings.

In the petition are included a number of requests related to reduction of the intensity of the legal felling – preservation of 10% century-old forests on the territory of the forestry enterprises, reduction of the felling in the nature parks and of the so called “sanitary” felling with which often is misused and the requirements are disregarded; ecological certification of all state forests; keeping the requirements for forest conservation in the NATURA 2000 areas. All these topics will be discussed in details on the following expert meetings.

Zornitsa Stratieva, forest expert to “Transparent Mountains” declared – “The measures included into our petition are only the beginning and cannot exhaust everything which should be done in the forestry sector in order to ensure the forest conservation. Without full transparency and civil control over all activities of the forestry administration a real result could not be achieved in the conservation of this invaluable natural resource.”

Transparent Mountains (www.prozrachniplanini.org) is initiative of Wildlife Association BALKANI, Association Baikariya – Velingrad and fishermen’s association Balkanka 2009. Its goal is to foster the civil participation in the management of forest resources. The team works in the sphere of the management of protected territories, forests and waters in south-western Bulgaria.