The Natura 2000 network of protected areas was expanded to 28 per cent of Bulgaria’s territory on October 11, after the Cabinet approved 27 additional protected areas.

These are most of the places voting on which was postponed in 2006 after a request by the then-National Forest Administration. The approved territories are sections of forests and envelop slightly more than 13 per cent of Bulgaria, or 1.5 million decares, Bulgarian-language Dnevnik daily reported.

The zones approved fall into the initial borders proposed by the teams who worked on Natura 2000, except the Rila buffer and Central Balkan National Park. There is massive tourism investment interest in these territories.

Minister of Environment and Water Affairs Djevdet Chakurov said that with this decision, the protected zones within Natura 2000 amount to 295. He said the Cabinet had to approve a further 44 zones from the initially proposed list. The Biodiversity Council would consider them on October 25, for voting on by the Cabinet at the beginning of November. Chakurov said that if the Government approved them, Natura would expand to 35 per cent of Bulgaria’s territory. He promised that by the end of 2007, orders on the 88 zones protected according to the Birds Directive, which were approved by the Cabinet a few months ago, would be presented.

Chakurov said that the Natura 2000 zones that had been given for concession would become part of the environmental network after recultivation.

In response to the promises, the citizens’ group For Natura 2000, which gathers every Thursday morning in front of the Cabinet building to express its concerns about Natura 2000, gave ministers on their way into the October 18 meeting white thread “to sew the lies about Natura 2000” .

According to the group, the approval of nearly half of the postponed zones on October 11 was a sham and was a “development well-planned by the Government and expected probably since the very beginning of the zones postponing in February 2007”.

The group said that the problem was the fact that the illegal conditions allowed by Regional Development and Public Works Minister Assen Gagaouzov on February 15 still prevalied. These conditions include that areas that have regional development plans be excluded from Natura 2000, as well as those that are objects of concession and extraction of underground resources. This makes the inclusion of many zones, partly or fully, not worthwhile because it allows for destruction of the land. In addition, these conditions contradict the European Habitats and Birds Directives, in accordance to which Natura 2000 is set. This incorrect application of European legislative requirements is the reason for a penalty procedure against Bulgaria from European institutions.

In the end, the pro-Natura 2000 citizens said that the danger of penalties was still there, “despite the Government’s statements of the opposite before the media during these past few days”.