The government hastily approved at its last meeting (on Wednesday, December 28) what proposed the Ministry of Agriculture, and what experts qualify as lobbying amendments to the Forests Act. The BANKER weekly has reported that these new texts, according to a definite opinion from environmentalist organizations in practice facilitates construction in natural parks.
Hastily concocted changes were submitted for approval in the nick of a second.
With this decision the Council of Ministers actually untied the hands of private owners, enabling them to build runways on slopes and lifts on land that is part of the state forest fund, but without changing the use of such land. In other words, it is glossing the matter over, because what will happen is logging of trees but the land lots will still be named state forests in official documents. Agriculture Minister Miroslav Naydenov rejected accusations by environmentalists that this serves the private interests and explained that the changes do not apply to a single company and that the amendments will be enjoyed by all resorts. The latter is something that virtually no one disputes, having in mind that in practice these facilities have long been in the hands of private companies…
Although at the beginning of his mandate it was namely Mr. Naydenov who enjoyed the fame of being a fan of restrictive measures for the conservation of forests, now he thinks that the previous changes (introduced by the ruling party half a year ago) impede the development of ski tourism. Of course, in the speech of the Minister there were heartbreaking comments for the future that these changes will secure to ski resorts in the country, for the chance given to the businesses to develop, and last but not least – the opening of new jobs and the revitalization of entire regions of the country. In response to critics of the law that defined these changes as a new way of unauthorized aid to private companies Mr. Naydenov dismissed the allegations as absurd as the territories in question, remain state property. According to him, one thing is, if the land is sold and then such action could be deemed to be an unauthorized aid. But in this case the lands are object to servient tenement only, which according to him was quite different. These sites will be used for construction of ski lifts and cable cars, but in practice are temporary facilities and the runways will change ownership. Minister Naydenov said that the preservation of exclusive state property rights means that a reasonable compromise between the interests of the state and private investors has been found. According to him, because we are in competition with other European countries, the business must be supported and that this was the real meaning of the change, because without the infrastructure, there would be no tourists coming to visit.
Environment Minister Nona Karadzhova was also of the opinion that the permits for construction of ski facilities are not related to issues and concerns for the environment.
Words of ministers may sound almost like a spell for protecting forests, but many doubt that their actions will result in nature preservation.
