The Black Sea side of Strandja Natural Park, which has been the butt of attacks from the tourism industry since 2006 and was “saved” by MPs who adopted the new Protected Areas Act in summer 2007, has not yet been forgotten by investors or the local authorities.

Tsarevo municipality is now trying to change the area’s master plan in order to legalise all future construction along the whole waterfront strip of land between the settlements Tsarevo and Varvara, half of the strip of land between Ahtopol and Sinemorets, the Butamya beach south of Sinemorets, and few hundred metres south of Sinemorets in the direction of Rezovo, which is the final, and with the mildest climate, village before the Turkish border. To Sustain the Nature in Bulgaria coalition (SNB) said this in a media statement on November 14.

It seems that the local municipality considers the decreased attention by environmentalists and the media in the past few months after the “victory” of the new law as a sign to start pushing construction again. The municipality is now also in a hurry to pass new amendments to the local master plan before January 1 2008, because on this date the already Government-adopted Black Sea Coastal Act, which restricts construction on beaches, comes into effect.

The amendment that the local municipality is trying to pass would allow construction on all agricultural lands in the coastal part of Strandja Natural Park. This would not only break the Protected Areas Act, affecting the biggest protected zone in Europe, but would also annihilate the domestic traditional agricultural heritage, transforming these lands into an artificial construction of concrete-covered platforms. It would affect the biodiversity, killing off many local wild species that inhabit these regions as well.

Many locals elderly people are convinced that the massive tourist industry is the only way to secure their livelihood and that of their children and grandchildren for the coming years. They, together with the Tsarevo mayor, remain deaf to the attempts of environmentalists to give them information about the methods of alternative tourism that they can develop, because it seems to them as if “bunch of milksops are trying to tell them what to do”. Such is the hangover of a communism upbringing, which often impedes innovative development of the nation.

Instead of trying out new ways, the local elderly people and the authorities stand in admiration before the giant hotels, which now are replacing the pleasant forests, the small romantic seashore one-family huts, or the seashore itself. The locals have never seen such immense buildings or five-star hotels, so they seem to them a sign of success, while the modest village or eco-tourism opportunities remain unnoticed and unimportant to the Black Sea seaside landowners.

SNB said that the current amendments to Tsarevo municipality’s master plan are financed by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works with funding from the state budget. Their adoption could lead to legalisation of the illegal construction site Zlatnata Perla (Golden Pearl) of the firm Crash 2000, which was the cause of the start of environmentalists’ protests in early 2007. It appears that obviously some of the high state authorities would also benefit privately in some ways from massive tourism infrastructure construction in these area. Unfortunately, corrupt practises in the country are still very strong and hard to surmount, which, however, does not mean that all engaged in the fight against it will easily give up.

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