About 80 volunteers took part in the first of this season’s cleaning of Irakli beach on the Black Sea coast. It took place in the official days-off between May 24 and 27. Irakli is one of the sites whose inclusion in European environmental network Natura 2000 has been postponed.

The cleaning is organised regularly by the civil group Da Spasim Irakli (Let’s save Irakli) and it is the fourth in the past 12 months.

“This year the cleaning was organised despite of the bad weather, the news about the arson and the conflicts between Irakli landowners and the beach visitors,” a media statement by Da Spasim Irakli (DSI) said.

The volunteers attended the event for one, two or three days, depending on their free time. They were informed in advance by the organisers not to put up tents and to avoid places labelled “private property” to prevent confrontations such as the alleged arson by representatives of Irakli owners association on April 27, as previously reported by The Sofia Echo.

The media statement issued by the organisers said that on May 26, security company representatives walked on the beach and warned them that the managing director of the Swiss company Swiss Properties (SP), Stoyan Zahariev, had told the police in Obzor (the nearest town) that people were camping on private property. SP had planned to build holiday homes and apartments in the protected area. In August 2006, Zahariev had said that the company would be appealing against the Irakli construction ban issued by Environment and Water Affairs Minster Djevdet Chakarov last summer.

DSI said in its media statement that there was no such “illegal camping” on private property because most of the camps were near the beach or in the nearby forest, both state property. They said, however, there were only four tents on the sand and this was because the people in them had small children, the rest of the volunteers slept only in sleeping bags. “We wanted to start practising even better nature preservation,” DSI said.

The beach cleaning was also discussed with representatives of Irakli owners association and covered by Bourgas TV Channel 0. The landowners were informed that the beach would be cleaned and the volunteers would not enter private property. DSI said there were signs marking the private areas, put up by landowners shortly before the cleaning by the volunteers when, for first time, the landowners also cleaned up the beach. “We consider this as a small personal victory – Irakli landowners are finally started taking care of Irakli,” DSI said.

Traycho Vangelov, who it was reported in various media had been beaten up by ecologists, helped with the transportation of the collected rubbish. DSI called the articles about the above mentioned Irakli landowner who had allegedly been injured by environmentalists “black PR”.

DSI also said that there was a difference in opinion among the landowners concerning the beach’s future. Some of them said in an interview with Bourgas TV Channel 0 that they want only a 20 per cent construction density (of that seen in Slunchev Bryag – Sunny Beach), others want 30 per cent. There have also been discussions on whether only wooden building should be permitted, but not everybody agreed.

“The common problem is that independently they want to be able to build but they cannot answer the question of how to control construction so Irakli does not become another Slunchev Bryag, which according to the landowners’ words they don’t want to happen,” DSI said.

Meanwhile, there are various forums discussing the topic: The Irakli Future. In a poll published on extremism’s, 57 per cent of respondents are in favour of banning construction.

On May 27, the fourth day of the Irakli cleaning, there were six or seven civil policemen walking the beach, They spoke to the volunteers and clarified that they were there to maintain the peace between them and the landowners. No tents were damaged by police (as has been reported in some of the Bulgarian-language media), they only checked the volunteers' personal documents, DSI said.

“This is not the first attempt to discredit and dramatise the what is happening on the beach, using black PR and pure lies,” a DSI media statement said in response to the publications in some Bulgarian media articles about alleged police abuse and environmentalists beating up a landowner.

“However, it is sad that even when it should be all about cleaning, there are lies and speculation in the media from the side of the ‘non-profit’ association of Irakli landowners! Who has benefited from creating this artificial enmity instead of promoting the urgently needed dialogue?”, DSI said.

The civil environmental association also said it is aware of the motives and the money that the investors “who currently do not respect nature” could lose but it can not accept “such ugly attacks in the media.”

On May 21, the campaign Da Spasim Irakli won an award for the biggest contribution to civil society development. It was given by the association for partnership and citizens activity support, Balkan Assist one day before the start of the beach cleaning.

On June 1, the Bulgarian Green Party also issued a statement about the cleaning days in Irakli. Green Party ecology committee chair Valentina Kostova said that representatives of the committee and of the organisation Young Greens took part in the cleaning.

Kostova also wrote that the regional refuse collecting and recycling company, Ekopack, refused to co-operate with the volunteers. “Tsvetanka Rizova of Ekopack did not have any interest in the collecting packaging which is, in fact, a resource for the company. Collecting rubbish is also the purpose of the company. The collection of the packaging is already paid for through a ‘product tax’ on the companies who produce and use those packagings. Ekopack’s regional subcontractor – RTK - in turn wanted us to pay them for collecting the packaging,” Kostova wrote.

“There was something very strange in the whole situation,” she continued, “The foreigners who were having their holidays in the ‘concrete’ resort Slunchev Bryag were brought by bus to Irakli to take in a breath of fresh air, see the nature and to enjoy the beauties of our Black Sea coast, which they can no longer to see where they are.”