UNESCO enjoined Bulgaria to present for review the new Management Plan for Pirin National Park

A substantial delegation of Bulgarian Government was present in Istanbul, led by Deputy-Minister of the Environment and Water Boyko Malinov and the National Nature Protection Service Director Miroslav Kalugerov. However no one of its members took the floor while the fate of Bulgarian National Park was discussed.

Lyubomir Kostadinov, lawyer for WWF Bulgaria and the Coalition of Non-Governmental Organisations and Civil Groups “Let Nature Remain in Bulgaria” was the sole Bulgarian, who spoke at this session on UNESCO world heritage. He spoke in his faculty as observer and expressed concern for the future of Pirin National Park and support for UNESCO’s initial draft decision on Pirin.

Representatives of Bulgarian Government obviously preferred to act behind the curtains and must have struck agreements with countries like Kazakhstan, Vietnam and Kuwait to lobby for change of UNESCO draft decision on Pirin, in order to facilitate construction and logging in the mountain. At the same time delegations of partners of Bulgaria in the European Union like Finland and Portugal made efforts to step up the control for the protection of European and world natural heritage on the territory of Bulgaria.

The intervention by the delegations of Kazakhstan and Vietnam resulted in discarding of the requirements:

- UNESCO to approve the draft Management Plan for Pirin National Plan, in advance of its adoption.
This Plan is developed with funds from the European Union and envisages 14 times increase of the zone for new construction, as well as logging in 60 percent of the territory of the National Park.
- Bulgaria to be obliged to assess the total effect of new projects in Pirin National Park.
- Bulgaria to inform UNESCO on developments like changes in the concession contract for Bansko Ski Zone, in order not to allow new damage of Pirin as a site of world natural heritage.

Bulgarian nature was defended by the delegations of Finland and Portugal, which stressed that the protection of Pirin is exceptionally important for them, since it concerns not only an especially valuable site of world heritage, but also a landmark on the territory of European Union, which has to be protected in compliance with European standards. The two delegations focused on the need that the proposed management plan for the national park be approved by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) before taking effect.

UNESCO obligates Bulgaria to put into practice its previous recommendations as:
- To make an assessment of the impact of Bansko Ski Zone on the site of world heritage.
- To prepare a mechanism for monitoring of the impact of the ski zone on the site
- To prepare in a transparent way comprehensive tourism development plans for the two buffer zones (Bansko and Dobrinishte) as part of the Management Plan for Pirin National Park.
- To make an independent assessment of the capacity of the site and the buffer, with the purpose of setting clear limits on the usage of Bansko Ski Zone.

See a video of the discussion of UNESCO on Pirin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXOoIVmmeW0&feature=youtu.be&t=2h36m5s