MOEW leadership met with NGO representatives

22 Mar, 2022 | 11:10

 

Deputy Prime Minister for Climate Policy and Minister of Environment and Water Borislav Sandov held his first meeting with NGO representatives from the environmental sector. It was also attended by Deputy Minister Toma Belev and the chief-of-staff Ivan Velov.

“The topics you are working on are important for the Ministry of Environment and Water. We want to hear what you think should be on our agenda. It is possible that some of the topics we are working on differ from yours,” said Minister Sandov at the start of the meeting. He shared the idea of ​​setting up topical public councils, as required by the Environmental Protection Act, “but never put in practice. I hope that we can support a partnership on initiatives, projects, campaigns, but you must be the active party,” he told NGO representatives. The chief-of-staff Ivan Velov noted that it is very important to take into account the point of view of NGOs in decision-making. It was clarified that the MOEW will assign an expert to be responsible only for working with the non-governmental sector.

Minister Sandov pointed out that under the European Green Deal Bulgaria aims to achieve 10% of zones with strict protection on the land territory of the country and in the Black Sea by 2030. “We want to achieve this within the current term in office. For this purpose, we strive to identify “sleeping” projects, such as the Zapadna Stara Planina Nature Park. There are similar types of projects in the Rhodopes,” he said, adding that 30% of protected areas in Bulgaria had already been included in Natura 2000, but there was need to catch up in respect to the Black Sea. The “Green Belt” on the Western and Southern borders has the potential for new protected areas, including cross-border ones. For the “Blue Belt” - the Northern border and the Black Sea coast, the possibility of creating a Black Sea National Park is being discussed, which would include existing onshore protected areas and newly created protected areas in a common management network.

Deputy Minister Toma Belev also confirmed that the Ministry of Environment and Water has the will to create protected aquatic areas. “We started last week with the water area near Coral by declaring expediency. We have the idea and agreement with the Balkanka Association on the identification of protected rivers. We have research from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences on marine reserves to reach the goal of 10% strict protection. Sea, rivers, lakes, and wetlands are poorly represented within the system of protected areas in Bulgaria”, said Belev, adding that the MOEW team would like to get acquainted with a study in this direction if conservation organizations had one.

“We have a contract for the modernization of the information system for Natura 2000,” said Toma Belev. According to him, the National Biodiversity Monitoring System has not worked well in practice. “We managed to defend a budget that would serve to develop the system. Just for comparison - if in previous years the state has allocated 3 million BGN, this year we have set aside about 15 million BGN, but we need to increase the capacity in order to achieve a quick result,” he explained.

NGO representatives expressed positions on a number of issues: protected areas have been neglected for decades, so huge areas such as the Zapadna Stara Planina, the Rhodopes, the Black Sea coast and others have no management structures; the strategy for the development of the mining industry, whose national strategy is not subject to environmental and compatibility assessment; the protection of riparian vegetation and river ecosystems needs to be improved; to build fish passes in the rivers; to specify the opportunities for development of the RES sector; karst ecosystems to be under stricter protection. Concerns have also been expressed that the current legislation may be an obstacle to the identification of old-age forests in strictly protected areas.

In conclusion, Minister Sandov informed about the results of his meeting with the organization „The Green 10“ during his visit to Brussels: „We are looking for fast tracks to integrate energy sources. This may pose a risk to the protection of territories in Bulgaria. The European Commission is preparing a strategy. I shared my ideas to build RES on disturbed terrains - old mines, quarries, abandoned enterprises, as well as to strike a good balance in the case of degraded agricultural land by installing RES. We will need your expert assessment of how to make this happen in the best way for nature,” explained the minister.

The meetings of the Ministry of Environment and Water with NGOs will continue on a monthly basis and will be structured around specific topics.