Property owners in the National Park: We don't want to build skyscrapers, but rural tourism facilities that don't harm the environment

Members of the informal association Right to Ancestral Property and Private Property protested again today from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the bridge over the Tara River, near the entrance to the Biogradska Gora National Park (NP). The members of the association own property within the protected area, and they once again warned the state about the discrimination they say they suffer "because they cannot valorize their ancestral property."

"We continue to protest because of our ancestral land located in the NP zone, because of the restrictions on our right to use our private property... We want to live on our property, to valorize it, so that we, like other citizens of Montenegro, have some benefits from the property left to us by our ancestors... We want to be able to engage in agriculture, tourism, and livestock breeding... We do not want to build villas, multi-storey buildings and skyscrapers, but facilities for rural tourism, with which we do not disrupt or devastate the natural environment. We are the best guardians of the NP, because without the local population it would have long since ceased to exist," the message from today's protest said.

Members of the association claim that the NP, because they do not invest anything in infrastructure maintenance, actually profits from the results of the work of the local population. They say that "no matter how much pressure and discrimination they are subjected to, they will continue their protests."

"The only way to expel us from our ancestral land today is to expropriate it and pay fair compensation. They cannot do otherwise. We still believe and hope that we are not foreigners and asylum seekers in our own country. We believe that it is easy to reach a compromise without the devastation of the natural environment, so that both we and the state of Montenegro benefit from our ancestral land and private property," said the members of the Association.

They announced again that, if they do not receive answers from the authorities, they will "write to foreign embassies and competent bodies of the European Union."