I cannot say whether projects for developments in Strandja nature park have been submitted to Tsarevo municipality, Tsarevo mayor Petko Arnaoudov told The Sofia Echo on August 8.

Questioned as to which companies had submitted what kind of projects to the municipality, as the availability of construction plans according to local environmentalists provoked the local municipal council to change the detailed master plan to allow a high construction density and 58 000 new beds in the nature park, Arnaoudov at first said that there were, of yet, no plans at all, nor proposals from companies. Immediately after this statement, he changed his opinion to assert that before Environmental Minister Djevdet Chakurov approved the detailed master plan, Arnaoudov would not give such information to the media.

However, in 2006, illegal construction of the holiday village Zlatna Perla (Golden Pearl) started in Strandja nature park, which is to be legalised once the so-proposed master plan comes into force.

Arnaoudov further said that first the detailed master plan had to be approved and after that, the local landowners would be asked to sell their lands.

At the beginning of the week of August 4 2008, landowners from Strandja complained that the current detailed master plan put forward by Tsarevo municipality would mostly benefit the municipality itself, as the so-called regulated lands, those whose statute and purpose are designed to be changeable, are mostly municipal plots.

As such, in case the plan is approved, the municipality would easily be able to sell those lands to private investors and benefit from it, Konstantin Ivanov, spokesperson of the Bulgarian office of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), told The Sofia Echo on August 8. He said that, after the landowners’ statements, the WWF checked the diagrams of the plan and indeed most of the designated for-sale lands belonged to the municipality, not the local people.

As previously reported by The Sofia Echo, the Supreme Expert Environmental Council (SEEC) has approved Tsarevo municipality’s detailed master plan for construction in Strandja nature park. The July 31 decision was interpreted by environmental activists and the public as governmental support for construction in Strandja nature park.

The last step before the plan gets fully accepted is for Chakurov to approve the SEEC decision.