We saved Solana to be a nature park and now we have the knowledge and capacity to manage it", Tihomir Rakočević Tihi, a member of the Municipal Committee of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) Ulcinj and president of the Hunting Society in that city, said a few days ago in a Facebook post. Rakočević did not respond to messages and calls from the newsroom, so the public was deprived of his explanation of how the party of which he has been a member since he came of age and the hunting club contributed to the preservation of Solana.
The Dr. Martin Šnajder Jakobi Society (MSJA) and the Center for the Protection and Study of Birds (CZIP) say that it was the hunters and Rakočević who were the loudest opponents of the idea of Solana being protected, and that the current status of Solana owes to the intensive activities of the diplomatic corps in Montenegro. the non-governmental sector and the Delegation of the European Union in Montenegro.
"Thanks to that, the Ulcinj Saltworks reached Brussels", reminds the president of MJSA Zenepa Lika and adds that today the Saltworks is formally protected because its status also conditioned Montenegro's EU accession negotiations.
Lika adds that Rakočević's statement is "ridiculous" and considers it "contradictory". "Since the beginning of the intensive work on the protection of this unique and important wetland area of world scale, the hunters have been the biggest opponents of official and formal protection", she says and reminds that there have been discussions on the topic of protection of the salt pan on several occasions, and that the hunters and the then ambassador Germans in Montenegro, Gudrun Elizabet Steinaker and others involved, insulted and showed no interest in concrete cooperation.
"They were exclusively interested in hunting, never in the protection of the salt pan. Because they knew that the protected area restricts, that is, prohibits hunting," she told Lika "News". there were over 30 hunters.
"Not only their representative, but also members of the hunting society. That says enough that the hunting lobby exerted some kind of pressure," says Lika. He adds that hunters have always ignored the opinion of experts that hunting on Solana would have a negative impact on the world of birds.
"Because not only are 'some' species being killed, but a lot of pressure is being exerted and, in addition, species that are on the red list of endangered birds are being harassed, which is extremely bad for their survival," she said.
Jovana Janjušević from CZIP recalled the statements of the protection study on Solana, in which it is written that one of the conditions for the functionality of the protected area is the prohibition of hunting. The study, she adds, was adopted by the Ministry of Sustainable Development (MORT) and the Government as a valid legal document.
"The direct impact of hunting is shown through the number of dead birds, which, with some exceptions, is the least of our concerns. A much bigger problem is the impact on anxiety. One shot usually kills one bird, but it can frighten or drive away an entire flock of several hundred or even thousands of birds," Janjušević quoted part of the statement of independent expert Andrej Sovinac and the protection study that deals with this area.
Sovinc, she adds, also writes that "a loud shot can frighten birds in a radius of a kilometer or more".
"Harassment is partly caused by the presence of hunters and their dogs in the field. For these reasons, hunting as a sport is not at all compatible with nature protection areas", writes Sovinc.
Hunting, adds Janjušević, can have a harmful impact on the international level as well. "When death strikes birds during migration, it affects breeding or wintering in other regions, countries, and continents to which the birds move," she explains.
He adds that the Birds Directive, one of the most important pieces of EU legislation in the field of nature protection, also talks about this. According to Janjušević, the Directive does not specifically prohibit hunting in Natura 2000 areas, but "it must be guaranteed that these activities will not lead to a decrease in the population of hunted birds and cause harmful disturbances in other protected species present". A similar position on hunting, she adds, is taken in the Ramsar Convention.
Commenting on Rakočević's and DPS's announcement, Janjušević confirms Lika's allegations. "Five years ago, at the first public debate, he was the loudest and most aggressive opponent of the idea of protecting the Salt Lake, primarily because protection implies a ban on hunting in the area of the protected area. "Only recently, during discussions led by independent experts who finalized the protection study, he agreed to protection, but - with hunting allowed," said Janjušević.
On the claim of the Ulcinj DPS and hunters that they have the knowledge and capacity to manage Solana, Lika more rhetorically asks "since when".
The CZIP reminds that a few years ago, that NGO filed a complaint against Rakočević because of public threats to the life of the organization's ornithologists, after they announced to the public that the bodyguard of Prime Minister Duško Marković had been caught poaching.
Janjušević says that the head of the future management body "must be a person with the necessary professional qualifications and, no less important, experience in managing a protected area, namely a salt pan".
And the hunting society, assesses Lika, "neither has the experts to manage such a complex ecosystem, nor does it have the knowledge." "They are exclusively engaged in hunting, not improvement, biodiversity management... Especially when it comes to experience in managing a semi-artificial area, where and how experts in the field of protected area management are needed, who have many years of experience and know how to manage such a complex area" , says Lika.
The question of ownership awaits the position of the Privatization Council
The shareholders of "Bajo Sekulić" Saltworks announced a few days ago that they expect compensation and said that the state is not the owner.
When asked how complex the issue of ownership is and how it affects the further management of Solana, Janjušević told "Vijesta" that it "has always been a stumbling block".
"Recently, we lost the possibility of concluding a contract for a project supported by the EU because all the work invested in terms of adaptation or reconstruction would have entered the bankruptcy estate. The question of ownership also slows down the procedure of finding a partner for a public-private partnership in starting the production of salt," she said. He reminds that the issue of ownership was raised before the Commercial Court, but the proceedings were suspended in 2015 pending the opinion of the Privatization Council. The council, however, has not sat down to date, nor has it decided on the issue.
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