The Ulcinj Saltworks must be protected, but protection without salt production means nothing. Without the production of salt, that location will not have a great biodiversity value and thus we have actually done nothing essential for the nature of Montenegro, says Jovana Janjušević from the Center for the Protection and Study of Birds (CZIP).
The salt pan in Ulcinj is not natural. It was created by man, but, according to that NGO, nature continued that work and created "huge biodiversity and great biodiversity" in that area.
"There are no such places anywhere else in Europe," says Janjušević.
Judging by the statements of the participants of the recently held international conference on the protection of salt mines, organized by CZIP, the beginning of salt production will have to be preceded by the resolution of property-legal relations.
"We don't know if Solana is state-owned, the Eurofund, who has the mortgage, whether it is legal or not... And only the government can answer that question," said Janjušević.
For the president of the URA GP, Dritan Abazović, the issue of property-legal relations around the Solana is simple, and he believes that solving it is only a matter of political will.
"This is decided by the Privatization Council, whose members are members of the Government. In the last convocation, we had a scandalous situation where a brother had to decide whether to attribute property to his own brother. It's not quite like that now, but unfortunately there are still those relationships in which decisions are made by best man for best man, friend for friend, financier for financier... If the Property Protection Administration thinks it's okay that a square meter of land on Solana is paid 0,5 cents , and if the price of a square meter in the area is at least 140 euros, then there is enormous corruption. The matter is legally simple and it is only a matter of lack of political will to solve the problem," he said.
And the matter of political will, according to Abazović, is also the adoption of the act on the declaration of Solana. He believes that Solana must be a monument, not a nature park.
"Thus, Solana would enter the European convention and thus any construction in that area would be permanently impossible. And these are not complex administrative and technical processes, they just depend on the political will, which neither the previous government nor the former Minister of Sustainable Development and Tourism Branimir Gvozdenović had, and neither does the new Pavle Radulović, who just continued on the paths of the previous one."
According to CZIP, Montenegro is the only one in Europe that has salt pans and does not produce salt. They also add that numerous examples show that salt production is profitable. There is a salt mine in France, which is eight times larger than Ulcinj and whose annual turnover is 240 million. In Albania, a salt factory the size of the one in Ulcinj has a turnover of 40 million euros.
As an example of a successful salt pan, the Piran salt pans were also presented. Solana Sečovlje is 15 times smaller than Ulcinjska and 97 percent is owned by the state. It was founded in the 9th century and the production of salt is carried out in the traditional way even today, as it was then. It is a completely "green" product, where quality comes first. In the production process of salt in Ulcinj, quantity was in the first place. But, according to experts, the Ulcinj Saltworks has a more diverse biodiversity.
The diverse biodiversity, again, depends on the salinity of the habitat. And the habitat is salty when there is salt production on it. Until then, says Jovana Janjušević, we have a lake at Solana, not a salt pan.
And flamingos used to come to Montenegro because of that salty habitat. Three years ago there were 2.500, and this year only 350. If there is no salt water, they say in the CZIP, there will be no flamingos either.
The international conference for the protection of salt flats was attended by the ambassadors of Greece, Poland, Germany, Austria, Macedonia, and Slovenia, as well as representatives of UNDP, the EU delegation, EuroNatura, BirdLife International, MORT, NTOCG. Of all the participants, only the representatives of the state claimed that a lot had been done regarding Solana. The international public, on the other hand, expects the Government and Prime Minister Duško Marković to resolve the issue of the Ulcinj Saltworks as a matter of priority.
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