A new management plan, which would have allowed construction in two thirds of Bulgaria’s Pirin National Park, and logging in almost half, was this week definitively ruled illegal by the country’s highest administrative court, citing the plan’s omission of environmental and Natura 2000 impact assessments, ending more than three years of legal battles.
Pirin has exceptionally beautiful mountain scenery and glacial lakes, and is an example of a healthy, functioning Balkan uplands ecosystem. The natural coniferous forests shelter a 1,300 year-old endemic Bosnian pine tree, believed to be the oldest on the Balkan peninsula. Pirin is home to brown bears, grey wolves, chamois and 159 species of bird among which is the Eurasian three-toed woodpecker, the rarest in Europe.
Pirin was recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983, although in 2010, UNESCO excluded the ski areas above the towns of Bansko and Dobrinishte from the World Heritage Site, identifying them as “buffer zones” to the heritage site due to the damage and destruction already caused by construction around the Bansko ski zone. The installation of the facilities led to the clearance of more than 160 hectares of forests.
