Who will be responsible for the action against Bulgaria taken by the EC for “Rila buffer”?

Yet during March this year the Coalition warned that Bulgaria demonstrated once again its reluctance to comply with the EU legislation by postponing again the inclusion of “Rila buffer” within NATURA2000. At its last meeting this spring the National Council for Biodiversity (NCB) with 11 votes “in favour”, 4 votes “abstained” and 8 votes “against” again postponed the inclusion of “Rila-buffer” within the environmental network NATURA2000.

The representatives of the scientific organizations opposed this decision but surprisingly Ministry of Environment and Waters and the rest state administrations in the council – Ministry of Agriculture and Foods and Executive Agency for Forestry supported the postponement. Within this context the reaction of MEW to the news for the action is strange now that with the postponement of the decision for “Rila buffer” the representatives of the authorities made impression that they worked for the interests of those benefited by replacements and of the people destroying the century-old forests in Rila - http://www.moew.government.bg/?show=news&nid=4570

Within the NCB the state represented by MEW clearly showed that it disregards the requirements of the European and national legislation, the scientific arguments and the conservation value of the area proven by research and analyses done for many years. With this action the MEW and the other state institutions clearly showed that they are reluctant to conform to the last warning addressed by the European Commission in the autumn of 2014 that Bulgaria should fulfill its obligation to include the territory in question within NATURA2000 since it is part of the Important Bird Area (IBA) “Rila”.

The Commission also reminded on Friday that it had given warning almost two years ago about the necessity for extension of the scope of the protected areas, but Bulgaria has not fulfilled this duty.

After the announcement of the decision for action being taken the Ministry of Environment distributed a press release where they point that “designating of the territories as protected areas of the NATURA2000 network is based only on scientific data”. However the question arouses why the state representatives in NCB have not taken into consideration the scientific data given to them by the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds that clearly show the necessity of designation of that area. We remind that the data were subjected to five independent checks, two of which international, during the last 10 years and nothing necessitated the delay of the decision for another two years.

The promulgation of the entire IBA “Rila” as a protected bird area will increase the national coverage of NATURA 2000 only with 0,19% but at the same time it will ensure effective protection and management of a significant part of the national populations of a number of forest bird species. The NATURA 2000 area would guarantee the conservation and sustainable usage of the old forests in the Rila Mountain not only on account of the birds, but also because of the needs of people of drinking water, clean air, flood prevention and storing of the surpluses of carbon dioxide.

Additional information

In accordance with the European legislation the Member States are obliged to declare enough in number and acreage protected bird areas while measures other than their declaration are not accepted as enough. Also at the stage of determining of the territories and their boundaries economic or other arguments different from the scientific ones could not be used. Only scientifically justified ornithological criteria are used as the criteria of BirdLife International for determining of IBAs are recognized as such by the European Court. For the lawsuit “Kaliakra” the Court clearly judged that the Member States are obliged to categorize all territories which after applying the criteria are identified as most appropriate, and found that Bulgaria is guilty for noncompliance with this requirement with its 7-year delay for declaration of the entire IBA as a NATURA 2000 protected area. The Court has repeatedly enacted in different cases that for territories of bird importance, which have been proposed to be included in NATURA 2000 but have not been declared as such, article 4.4 of the Bird Directive acts, which requires no pollution or damage of bird habitats or bird disturbance. This article will continue to act for “Rila-buffer” until it is included in NATURA 2000 and each violation of it will lead to punitive actions.

IBA “Rila” covers a significant part of the territory of Rila Mountain as it includes the National Park “Rila”, the Natural Park “Rila Monastery” and a territory around both parks which does not have legal protection. IBA “Rila” encompasses the high alpine parts of the mountain, as well as many old coniferous and deciduous forests and meadows, inhabited by 130 nesting bird species.

IBA “Rila” was proposed for including within NATURA 2000 10 years ago (in 2006), but yet at declaring the environmental network for the birds in 2007 it was one of the sites which were not entirely declared as protected areas. For this reason it was included in the penalty procedure against Bulgaria for insufficiency of the network for bird protection, started yet in 2008. Then only the National Park was declared a NATURA area. In 2010 as a result of active negotiations between the European Commission, the Bulgarian government, NGOs and scientific organizations and at deep analysis of the scientific arguments the territories of 4 of the 6 protected areas, object of the procedure, were expanded sufficiently. As regards IBA “Rila”, however, only Natural Park “Rila Monastery” was included within NATURA 2000, and the territory unprotected by law called “Rila buffer” was delayed for consideration at a later stage. As a result 15% of the territory of IBA “Rila” remained outside NATURA 2000 – mainly old coniferous, deciduous and mixed forests, but also meadows and grasslands in the lower part of the mountain. In this way most affected are the wood bird species for which Rila is the most important site for their protection in the entire European Union. After 4 years of waiting the European Commission addressed its last warning to Bulgaria for noncompliance with the European laws since it continues in a justified way to consider that the declaration of the entire territory of IBA “Rila” is scientifically justified and without the territory of “Rila-buffer” the obligations of our country regarding the network sufficiency are not fulfilled.