Large deposits of sand at the mouth closed the flow of the Bojana River into the sea today, which created a big problem for fishermen and reopened old dilemmas on how to solve this problem, in which experts from other countries, in addition to local ones, are engaged in an attempt to prevent beach erosion on Ada and save the river.
"Fishermen could not go out to the sea through our backwater today because the mouth is covered with sand," the well-known Bojan fisherman Ivo Knežević told Vijest.
He stated that it was a consequence of unfavorable weather conditions and a strong southerly wind that lasted for days, as well as that other fishermen from Velika plaža were not able to go out to sea in boats.
This is not the first time that the Montenegrin arm of the river has been cut off from the sea. A few years ago, for a short time, Ada, like today, was a peninsula because it was connected to the Veliki beach via a closed estuary.
Numerous appeals by fishermen and ecologists to urgently involve competent municipal and state structures in solving the problem, a few years ago, did not bear fruit, just like the warnings of Prof. Dr. Sava Petković that closing the estuary could threaten even the constitutional status of Montenegro.
"Vijesti" then announced that the project for the regulation of the Bojana River in the area of its mouth was drawn up in 2010, but that the initial interest in solving the problem had not moved away.
In order to solve this problem, the Water Administration of Montenegro engaged the company "IK Konsalting" from Belgrade to prepare the main project for the regulation of the Bojana River in the area where it enters the sea.
The project was completed in 2010, and the main and responsible designer was civil engineer Gordana Vujić Stojanović, while Petković was the expert consultant.
He then assessed that the problem on the right branch of the Bojana is exclusively a problem of Montenegro.
"If there is not enough money to regulate that section of the river according to the completed project, then at least money must be provided for dredging the huge amounts of sand that have settled in the bed of the right branch," said Petković at the time.
Professor Petković pointed out that in addition to the enormous importance for the development of tourism, the wider environment of the mouth of Bojana is also extremely important from the point of view of preserving the unique ecosystem in Europe.
He stated that the study "Regional Park Delta Bojana" states that this delta is the most important natural wetland in the Eastern Mediterranean, characterized by an unusually diverse complex of unique and endangered natural and cultural landscapes, habitats and species.
"If this space is not protected, the constitutional status of Montenegro and its international reputation as a tourist country and an ecological state would be seriously threatened," states the part of the document quoted by Petković.
He pointed out completely opposite opinions about solving the problem in the area of the mouth of the Bojana.
"Experts in the field of ecology strongly oppose any interventions in the Bojana bed, including the removal of alluvial deposits and the establishment of river flow, because, they claim, this would damage the unique ecosystem in the Bojana delta zone. On the other hand, the area of Ada Bojana is highly threatened by erosion processes, so establishing the flow of the right branch of Bojana is only one of the conditions to stop that negative trend," Petković assessed at the time.
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