The Forestry Act is back for discussion in Parliament

The Parliamentary Agriculture and Forests Committee is expected to be soon ready with its report on the Forestry Act, which President Rosen Plevneliev returned at the end of last week. On Tuesday, the President’s veto on the controversial law was submitted to Parliament. The report should be considered by the MPs who, in their turn, should accept or reject the presidential veto. “If the MPs support the veto, a new bill will probably be drafted,” predicted environmentalist Toma Belev, Head of the Management Board of the Green Balkans Federation of Nature-conservation NGOs, at a press conference, provoked by the disagreements between environmentalists and business representatives from the mountain resorts.

Lawmakers have done their work perfectly. The former law was not good and impeded any investments,” commented on bTV Fillip Tsanov, Chairman of the Nature for People and Regions Association, who was among the organisers of the protests in defence of the new Forestry Act. According to Tsanov, businesses in these regions are strapped, there are no industries, tobacco-growing and production of potatoes are on a decline since even the potatoes from Poland are cheaper. The purchase prices of meat and milk are low. Therefore, stockbreeding is not a preferred occupation. Tourism is one of the few means of livelihood that could be developed. That is why people living in the mountainous regions choose “to either stay here or go abroad", but the worst thing is that "not a single nail has been stuck here for the last 20 years, with the exception of the town of Bansko”.

Tsanov pointed out that “skiers do not want to interfere with the environmentalists, so let the environmentalists not interfere with tourists as well”. According to the expert, only 0.05% of Bulgarian forests are used for skiing and the construction of facilities is totally under control at present. In case of a failure to reach a compromise between the people from the regions, for whom the new Forestry Act is a good solution, and the environmentalists, who oppose it, the issue could be moved to the Supreme Court.

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