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 (2) Set up a national park and considerably extend the present fragmentary nature reserve network in the Western Rhodopes Mountains.

(3) Create a biosphere reserve on Mount Vitosha to incorporate the existing nature reserves Bistrishko Branishte and Torfeno Branishte, as well as the prohibited catchment areas south of Cherni Vrah Peak.

(4) Further expand the nature reserve network in Rila Mountain and Pirin Mountain.

(5) Merge the three existing nature reserves in Ropotamo National Park.

(6) Set up regional parks in the following mountains: Eastern Rhodopes; Strandzha, including the seashore south of the town of Ahtopol; Western Rhodopes; Plana and Lozenska Planina; Sredna Gora; Osogovska Planina; Vrachanska Planina, including the Iskar Gorge; Iztochna Stara Planina (Eastern Balkan Mountains); Shipchenska Planina; as well as the Kraishte Highlands.

(7) Set up the protected landscapes Severno Chernomorie (Northern Black Sea Coast) and Yuzhno Chernomorie (Southern Black Sea Coast).

3. Conservation Areas as Open Systems

(1) Conservation areas are integral parts of the respective regions and ought to function within the framework of regional sustainable development programmes, so that the local communities could benefit directly from them.

(2) Although being the best preserved fragments of Bulgaria’s nature, conservation areas cannot exist as isolated islands of ecological prosperity. Their fragile environmental balance could hardly be maintained without ecologized human activity in the rest of the country and scaling intervention in devastated regions where the environment is unable to self-recover.

(3) Conservation areas are exposed to transmitted air, water and soil pollution, anthropogenic changes in the microclimate, as well as noise pollution and visual intrusion. Therefore, the struggle for nature heritage preservation is inseparable from the struggle for sound environment.

4. Hot Issues

Bulgaria’s nature, not excluding conservation areas, is subject to systematic onslaught on behalf of narrow-minded interests. What is needed now is not just to oppose such practices, but to fight also for elimination of their consequences accumulated during the last few decades, in order to undermine the fait accompli tactics. For this purpose, it is urgently necessary to:

(1) Take under protection the remaining undeveloped patches of the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast; ban any further developments in the one-hundred-meter coastal strip.

(2) Remove all facilities and infrastructure from the territory and the buffer zones of the coastal nature reserves and national parks Baltata, Zlatni Pyasatsi, Kamchia and Ropotamo.

(3) Close the game preserves ‘Mazalat’ and ‘Rila’, which cater for the top elite, while interfering with conservation of nature.