Bulgaria must not miss the chance to get international help for the protection of Pirin

Bulgaria is about to voluntarily refuse the outstretched hand of UNESCO and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for better management of National park Pirin – part of the World Heritage, warns the coalition of non-government organizations and civic groups “Let the Nature remain in Bulgaria”.

Extremely worrying is the information that on today’s meeting of the 40th session of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO in Istanbul the Kazakh delegation has requested a change in the draft for Pirin is extremely worrying and can be seen as an attempt to undermine the proposed decision for Pirin. The draft of UNESCO, published on their website alarms what is happening in Pirin and insists on non approval of any future projects on its territory, before the new Management plan has been subject of environmental assessment and approved by UNESCO and IUCN.

The practice includes that the drafts of the committee are adopted without amendments unless one of the Member States requests to open discussion and propose changes. Surprisingly, it has been made by the delegation of Kazakhstan. It is beyond any doubts that this is a matter of of self-initiative by the Asian republic – certainly it comes to an agreement with the Bulgarian government delegation present in Istanbul, which is likely to be prepared the proposal, which Kazakhstan submit to the Committee, of which Bulgaria is not a member.

If the decision is changed, the country will lose the opportunity to receive international technical assistance on the protection of Pirin – one of the two Bulgarian sites of World Heritage (along with Sreburna Nature Reserve). The new Management plan allows logging and felling over 60% of the territory of Pirin National park and 14 times increase of the areas for development. If it is adopted, Pirin will fall into the list of world heritage sites under threat.

Until the new Management plan is adpoted, the old one is acting and it doesn’t allow such construction and logging. The Bulgarian national interest requires the new plan to be the best possible and most adequately to perform its functions – to protect the national and global wealth.

The maps above compare the current and proposed plan. The maps provide possible answer why the institutions are trying to hide the document from the eyes of international experts. This seems to be quite a difficult task, because of the draft and the entrust procedure are already a subject of interest for at least one international organization – the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF)

Follow the discussion from Istanbul:
http://whc.unesco.org/en/sessions/40com/#live

The draft for Pirin from UNESCO:
http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2016/whc16-40com-7B-en.pdf (page 175)