Property owners within the borders of the Biogradska Gora National Park (NP) have radicalized their protests today, blocking the main road Kolašin-Podgorica for two hours, from 12:14 to XNUMX:XNUMX. For the fourth week in a row, they have been blocking the main road on Saturdays, expressing their dissatisfaction with what they claim is the "unconstitutional deprivation of the right to manage their own property."
The gathered members of the informal association "Right to Ancestry and Private Property" once again called for dialogue with state institutions and demanded "enabling the right to use and develop their properties in accordance with laws and tradition."
Svetozar Bogavac, one of the owners of the property and a member of the association, said that the locals "have been put in an absurd situation, unable to build facilities even for basic needs, whether for livestock, agriculture or rural tourism, on the land they inherited from their ancestors."
"We can build, but with legal consequences for us, the owners. Many of us have become or will become criminals because of our 'fiction of property'. The authorities from state bodies and institutions say that we cannot build, because with these wooden buildings, possibly buildings made of stone, which are very few in our ancestral land, the environment is being damaged, the beautiful ambience of our properties is being damaged. They told us that the National Park will manage our property better than we, the owners. They say that you don't know how to protect it, the National Park will protect it better than you, because you don't know what is best for you and your ancestral land," said Bogavac.
With such messages, he claims, “the state has taken away the business capacity of the property owners and has become their guardian and tutor.” According to Bogavac, considering how the state and the National Park treat the locals, it is a miracle that there is even a single householder on Bjelasica who has any agricultural activities.
"According to the institutions, our life can take place under the open sky, without any accommodation for the property owners and their livestock. They expand the borders of the NP every day without asking or informing the private owners. They draw protective zones according to their taste and interest. They say only the NP can build at its discretion, buildings made of hard material, on the shore of the lake where there is also a septic tank made of a concrete structure built in a strict rainforest reserve," claims Bogavac.
Today's gathering was held to announce that the National Park "should not protect the area from local residents and property owners, but from fires, loggers and poachers." The locals reminded that the Biograd rainforest and its surroundings have been "protected by local residents since time immemorial, even before the National Park was formed."
"We are wasting time on blockades, and no one remembers us. None of the representatives of state bodies and institutions have so far had any conversation with us to try to solve the problem that has arisen. The exception is the Public Company for National Parks of Montenegro (JP NPCG), from which they say that they are only managers of our property and that they cannot help us, but refer us to other competent ministries and the Environmental Protection Agency. All of these institutions, as taxpayers, are financed by us and other citizens of Montenegro, so that they can help, not cause harm," the message from the blockade of the highway was sent.
Members of the informal association "Right to Ancestry and Private Property" are demanding that they be allowed to valorize their properties, primarily by building buildings made of wood and, possibly, stone for the purposes of accommodation, agriculture, livestock farming and rural tourism. They are also demanding that the issuance of urban planning and technical conditions (UTU) be enabled, and that all private property be in the III protection zone, so that, they explain, all owners have equal legal status and are not discriminated against.
As previously jointly announced by the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Northern Development, JP NPCG and the Agency, "they are continuously open to dialogue and cooperation with the local population and all interested parties regarding issues of NP management". They recalled that the public debate on the Draft Audit Study for the NP lasted 55 days, that all interested parties were given access to the document, submitted comments and suggestions, and two public forums in Kolašin and one round table were also organized.
The NP protection zones were finally defined by the Special Purpose Spatial Plan (SPSP), which is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property, to which the Study was submitted as an expert basis in 2024.
The Ministry, PE NPCG and the Agency stated that "nature protection laws clearly regulate the issue of property rights and the possibility of compensation in the event of restrictions on the right to use real estate", and that there are legal mechanisms that protect the interests of owners and enable compensation if legally valid restrictions occur.
They claim that the park's borders have not been changed except in a technical sense – so that they do not intersect cadastral plots. Nearly 80 percent (4.720 ha) of the NP's area is state-owned. Within this protected area, three protection zones have been defined.
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