For the umpteenth time, the Municipality of Ulcinj has broken its promise to finally take over the management of the Nature Park (PP) of the Ulcinj Salt Flats, the Center for the Protection and Study of Birds (CZIP) announced.
The non-governmental organization (NGO) added that in the program "Naglas" on RTCG, on May 15, the President of the Ulcinj Municipal Assembly, Ardijan Mavrić, publicly promised that the very next day, he would prepare the Decision on the establishment of a company by which he would take responsibility for this protected area and send it to the Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism for its opinion.
"Since this did not happen even two weeks later, we call on the Municipality of Ulcinj to stop misleading the public, both domestic and international, which it has been doing for more than a year through the media, at international conferences and meetings, rendering meaningless the word spoken publicly, the personal integrity of individuals which represent what is perhaps the most important, the face of people who have made promises that have been broken several times," the CZIP press release says.
They said that "it is a paradox that for concrete steps to preserve the nature park Ulcinjska solana they have to beg no less than representatives of the Green Party - the mayor of Ulcinj, Omer Bajraktari, and the Prime Minister of Montenegro, Dritan Abazović".
"As the co-founder of the company that will manage the salt pan, the responsibility is equally shared by the "green" minister, Mrs. Ana Novaković Đurović, who for a year did not find it necessary to get involved in solving this problem. All our previous appeals in the last few months were ignored, so they We hereby invite them to show how high the Ulcinj Saltworks is on the green agenda. We no longer believe in Mr. Mavrić's promises, especially not those promises that should come true tomorrow. It seems that when that is said, what is actually meant is "a little tomorrow". Four The Ulcinj Saltworks is waiting for a simple administrative procedure while the chair of the future director of this protected area is being politically traded. The saltworks are seen as an apparatus for gathering political votes and machinery for future campaigns and elections. Meanwhile, it is not only the birds and the living world of the saltworks that stand to lose. but also the citizens of Ulcinj, and especially the former workers of the factory for the production of salt," said the CZIP.
The NGO said that the establishment of a management structure is a legal obligation of the Municipality of Ulcinj in accordance with the Decision on Proclamation of a Protected Area, the adoption of which has passed four years ago.
"In addition, the activity of establishing a manager for PP Ulcinjska Solana is one of the activities in the Action Plan for fulfilling the final benchmarks for Chapter 27, and therefore one of the conditions for closing the chapter and fulfilling Montenegro's obligations towards the European Union. Most importantly, the manager is Salt flats are badly needed because the ecological conditions are increasingly unfavorable due to carelessness and inadequate management. A key ecological process has been interrupted, i.e. the flooding of the area with salt water due to the collapsed dikes between the basins that no longer fulfill their function. Instead of fresh sea water rich in food for birds and other organisms, the basins of the Ulcinj Salt Lake are overgrown with vegetation and are losing their characteristics of an important wetland habitat. And finally, if the Municipality is not ready and eager to manage the Ulcinj Salt Lake, there is someone who is and who has been doing it all this time without a finger in their pocket," the CZIP statement concludes.
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