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Text:	ENVIRONMENT-BALKANS: Power Battles Nature Again Vesna Peric Zimonjic BELGRADE, Dec 3 (IPS) - The parliament of the tiny republic of Montenegro began a long awaited debate this week on building a hydropower plant on the Tara river, one of the most attractive tourist and nature reserves in former Yugoslavia. The government of Montenegro, smaller sister of Serbia in what is now the state union of Serbia and Montenegro, insists that the benefits of the hydropower plant 'Buk Bijela' would outweigh any damage to the country of 650,000 people. "Montenegro is not self-sustainable in the energy sector," says a government study on building the Buk Bijela system. "The country spends 65 million dollars a year on electricity imports." The project envisages 450 mega-watt plant from construction of a 500-metre high dam at a cost of 600 million dollars. A third of the investment would be covered by Montenegro through foreign credits. The rest would come through foreign firms. But the project is running into opposition. Some 15,000 people have signed a petition against Buk Bijela over the past three months. People pressure and pressure from environmental groups forced the government to debate the issue in parliament. "Building of the dam would lead to the flooding of dozens of kilometres of unique nature's reserve," Montenegrin environmentalist Danilo Mrdak told IPS. "The area was declared part of the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) 'Man and Biosphere' programme in 1977." UNESCO included the Tara canyon in the world map of nature's reserves together with the nearby Durmitor mountain national park in Montenegro. It says the Tara canyon, 82 km long, 1,300 metres deep and second only to the Colorado river canyon (Grand Canyon) in the United States, "should be preserved as a unique site of natural beauty and habitat." The World Tourist Organisation wrote to UNESCO that "Europe would lose one of its most beautiful natural reserve sites if the Buk Bijela project goes ahead." Montenegro Prime Minster Milo Djukanovic offered no comment on the warnings except to tell journalists that "there are even deeper canyons in the world." Thousands of rafters from all over former Yugoslavia and Europe have been coming to the canyon every summer for decades now. Licences for the summer rafters bring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Montenegrin economy. Montenegro has little industry, and its budget is funded mostly by foreign aid. Critics of Buk Bijela project say that building of the dam and the creation of a huge artificial lake would not only flood a large area and the canyon, but also force thousands of people from their homes. Montenegro has bitter memories of such events. Four decades ago a similar project destroyed the Piva river canyon. More than 12,000 people had to be resettled. "Those were different times and no one thought about alternative energy resources," Mrdak says. "It seems no one (in the government) is considering alternatives today...that is why we risk hearing the sentence my father used about the Piva river for the Tara now - 'what a stunning river and canyon that was'." Pavle Vuckovic, manager of Belgrade Energoprojekt construction firm involved in the project says "there is no other profitable energy resource like the Tara river and Buk Bijela in the area." Supporters of the hydropower plant argue that the project would create 5,000 new jobs and bring people together again years after the wars of disintegration of former Yugoslavia. The Tara river is partially a natural border between Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The dam would be built partly in Bosnia, which would buy some of the electricity. It has already contributed to the feasibility study. Opponents of the project say there are particular interests behind construction of the dam. They say the Montenegro government is trying to sell the aluminium plant KAP in capital Podgorica. KAP needs cheap electricity; it is being imported currently at high cost. The Montenegro government has said it is finalising a deal with Russian aluminium giant Russal for the sale of KAP. "Everybody speaks about 'reversible' hydropower plant or things like that," said Pero Rakocevic, a rafters guide at the Tara canyon. "No one admits that once you destroy this beauty, move people and flood everything, things become irreversible." (FIN/2004)

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