The Municipality of Mojkovac intends to translate months of requests from property owners in the Biogradska gora National Park into official initiatives - at the next session of the Municipal Assembly (MA), a draft conclusion will be presented requesting the state to re-categorize private plots from the second to the third - more liberal protection zone.
State institutions (the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Development of the North, the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property, and the Environmental Protection Agency) are requested to “review decisions on restrictions on the use of private property”.
"This would enable the local population to build auxiliary and temporary facilities intended for agricultural and tourist activities. This would prevent the population from moving out of their own property and enable partial economic valorization of that property," the draft conclusion states.
The proponents claim that the residents of Mojkovci, whose private plots are located in protected zones, have been faced with unclear rules, prohibitions, and selective approvals for years.
They also state that the state “was obliged to conduct a geodetic survey of the terrain, including Mount Bjelasica, to determine the exact borders and mark them in accordance with the cadastral plots.” Instead, they say, the borders were imprecisely established.
"Any action by the competent authorities based on such 'borders' constitutes a violation of the principles of legality and legal certainty, guaranteed by the Law on Administrative Procedure, the Constitution and the Law on Property and Legal Relations... It is particularly concerning that owners within Zone II of protection are prohibited from building auxiliary and temporary facilities, fencing off land, and installing tourist and agricultural infrastructure without first carrying out an expropriation procedure or providing fair compensation..."
It also states that "the restrictions were introduced without any compensation, without an appropriate public debate, and without an individual act that would legally regulate the scope and legal basis of the encroachment on specific property rights."
"By imposing permanent and de facto restrictions on the use of property, a situation of de facto expropriation is created, which is also contrary to the practice of the European Court of Human Rights...".
DISCRIMINATION
Although the declaration of a national park is justified by public interest, the proponents remind us, "any restriction of property rights must be accompanied by fair compensation."
“In the practice of Biogradska gora National Park, discriminatory application of laws and regulations has been recorded. Individuals and legal entities with significant political and economic influence often receive approvals for the construction and use of facilities within protected zones, while local residents and agricultural producers from the same area are strictly limited in the use of their real estate, especially with regard to the installation of auxiliary and temporary facilities. Such practice represents a gross violation of the constitutional principle of equality before the law and the principle of fairness in administrative proceedings, which directly undermines the legal trust of citizens in the impartiality and legality of the work of state bodies.”
They also state that "if the existing relationship does not change, the sustainability of local communities and the future of protected areas are at risk."
Property owners within the NP, gathered in the informal association "Right to Private Property and Ancestry", have been protesting for weeks, blocking the main road from Kolašin to Mojkovac for one hour on Saturdays. Their demands and arguments are identical to those presented in the draft conclusion, which will be presented to the Mojkovac councilors on August 4th.
As the Public Company for National Parks of Montenegro (JPNPCG) told "Vijesti" about 15 days ago, "in the previous period, at the request of the then Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism, the Environmental Protection Agency, as the competent authority, prepared a draft Study on the revision of the status, category and protection regime of the Biogradska Gora National Park". The document has not yet been adopted, and it defines the area along the Biogradsko Lake itself as the II protection zone, that is, the protection regime has been changed from the third to the second protection zone. They state that the main changes, compared to before, are the introduction of clear protection zones and three regimes with clearly defined activities that can be carried out in them.
The borders of the Biogradska Gora National Park have not yet been physically marked. The working group for marking the outer borders of this protected area was formed at the beginning of this year, and as the JPNPCG says, "there was no intention at the meetings to change the borders of the NP, but to make minor corrections in the sense that the border does not intersect the plots, but rather follows their borders and not to the detriment of private plots."
The Environmental Protection Agency completed and submitted the Biogradska Gora NP Review Study to the relevant Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Northern Development in March 2023. The entire procedure has been completed, from public forums to responses to received comments, which were then submitted to the Ministry of Ecology, the Agency recently told "Vijesti".
They then recalled that the review of protected areas is initiated based on Article 35 of the Nature Protection Act. This Act stipulates that, “if it is determined based on scientific findings that there has been a change in certain types of protected areas, the review procedure shall be initiated”. The procedure is initiated based on the request of the Ministry, local government body or manager, and should contain the reasons for initiating the procedure. The request shall also be accompanied by the results of the research and other information relevant to initiating the review procedure.
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