By Claudia Ciobanu
BUCHAREST, Oct 11 2007 (IPS)

Bulgarian Prime Minister Serghei Stanishev and former premier Simeon Saxe-Coburg attended a ceremony Tuesday marking the official start of a grandiose tourism project dubbed Super Borovits. An unusual show of political unity across party lines, it was meant to promote the tourism industry. But Super Borovits has been highly criticised for threatening nature.

Since August, more than ten protests have been held in capital Sofia against large-scale tourism development. Most ecologist groups have been engaged in a major campaign to defend important natural and cultural treasures from new construction.

The Super Borovits complex is meant to be an expansion of an existing ski resort in the Rila mountains, 70 km south of Sofia. The extended resort would include 19 ski tracks totalling 42 km, lifts capable of carrying 37,000 tourists, 4,000 vacation homes, and several hotels stretching over an area of 100,000 square metres.

The building of such facilities would radically alter the surrounding scenery and ecosystem, threatening biodiversity in the Rila mountains. “The works are approaching the Rila buffer zone, and it is very likely that they would lead to demolition of landscape and habitats,” Filka Sekulova from A SEED Europe (“Action for Solidarity, Equality, Environment, and Diversity”) told IPS.

The Rila mountains are among the most biodiverse regions in Europe. A large portion of the mountainous range is protected by national law.

Bulgaria has three national parks – Rila, Pirin, and the Central Balkans. With Bulgaria a member of the European Union (EU) since Jan. 1, 2007, such spots, together with others which are not protected at the national level, have become candidates for receiving protected status under the European Natura 2000 framework.

Adopted in 1992, Natura 2000 is meant to safeguard the most seriously threatened habitats and species around Europe.

Before joining the EU, Bulgaria was asked to draw up a list of sites which could be included in Natura 2000.

Bulgarian scientists from the National Biodiversity Council (an advisory body to the ministry of environment) considered that roughly 30 percent of Bulgaria’s territory should be proposed for Natura 2000, but the final list presented by the government to the European Commission (EC) barely encompassed 10 percent of the area.

Irina Mateeva, responsible for European policies at the Bulgarian Environmental Protection Society, said that only 88 places out of a total of 114 suggested by the specialists have been put on the final list given to the EC.

“The list of Natura 2000 sites submitted by the Bulgarian government omitted virtually the entire Black Sea coast as well as many mountainous areas near ski resorts that are the focus of investors’ interests,” said Katerina Rakovska, coordinator for Protected Areas and Natura 2000.

The Bulgarian government was also late in submitting this list. While the EC had asked for the proposals by Jan. 1, the Bulgarians responded only in March.

Alberto Arroyo Schnell, Natura 2000 coordinator for WWF (World Wildlife Fund) said the Bulgarian government itself acknowledged that the reason for this postponement is “investors’ interests” in some of the sites, especially on the Black Sea coast or near ski resorts. “This is in total contradiction with the requirements of the EU habitats directive and national law, which set out scientific arguments as the only motives for site designation.”

After the EC confirms the national list of sites, national authorities are expected to adopt decisions which establish a definitive protected status for these regions. At this stage too, Bulgarian officials found an opportunity to stall. It was only in September that the government adopted the first decision on a site. The other 87 will have to wait.

In the meantime, investors are quickly building tourist facilities in many of those areas, or at least drawing up plans for such constructions. According to existing regulations, areas for which master plans for development exist can be excluded from the protected sites. Each day the government lingers reduces the total area that will eventually be preserved.

Cveta Hristova from the Bulgarian environmental group Za Zemiata says examples of areas under Natura 2000 where construction is being carried out illegally are “too many”. Among them, ski facilities built without environmental permits in the Pirin mountains, a holiday complex destroying a unique combination of grey dunes and forests in Kamchiya close to the Black Sea, and golf courses built over the western Pontic steppes in Kaliakra.

“Authorities have given clear signs that they do not care,” Hristova told IPS. “All the actions they take are never aimed at actually preventing or stopping such development.” At most, the ministry of environment imposes fines on local officials who allow such constructions. Once these fines are paid, construction continues in the same manner.

On Oct.1, Bulgarian ecologists approached European commissioner for the environment Stavros Dimas with evidence that the Bulgarian state is not fulfilling its obligations to protect Natura 2000 sites. The same day, a couple of hundred demonstrators gathered again in the centre of Sofia, insisting they would continue to protest “until the illegal construction in Rila is stopped.”

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