Kotor will lose its status as a natural and cultural-historical area on the UNESCO World Heritage List, the director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Milan Gazdić confirmed to "Vijesta", referring to his unofficial knowledge.
President of Kotor Municipality Vladimir Jokić claims that this is not true. "Kotor will not lose its status, nor is it threatened," he wrote on Facebook.
Gazdić stated that the next UNESCO summit in Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia, will be "difficult for Montenegro" and that the National Park "Durmitor" will be put on the red list. At the conference "Protection of nature and environment, state, importance and perspectives", he said that it was a defeat for our country.
Jokic said that a decision regarding Kotor will be adopted in Riyadh, "which will be 'problematic' in the text, but as a result of insufficient information exchange between the parties".
"We have systematized all this and we instruct them to show through the facts that it is only noise in communication. Even if the decision was based on the real situation, and it was not, such a decision adopted would mean a warning that could be resolved in one or two of the reporting period, and if not, then they would eventually go as an endangered cultural heritage (which Ohrid is already iha-ha, or which Kotor was for decades after the earthquake), so if that doesn't happen either, then the ultimate sanction will come," he added. Jokić in a post on Facebook.
He then issued a statement in which he made additional clarifications.
"Kotor has not lost its status on the UNESCO list, nor will it lose it, nor is its status on the list threatened. After the process we conducted from 2017 to 2020, the result of which was a planning document and a protection system harmonized with UNESCO, with full responsibility I assert that there is no danger for the status of Kotor on the World Heritage List. I use this opportunity to once again express my immense gratitude on behalf of the city of Kotor and in my own name to all those who, during that period, made up the team that led to these results," said Jokić.
He reminds that the Spatial-Urban Plan of the Municipality of Kotor was adopted with the approval of UNESCO, as well as that all the recommendations of the reactive mission of UNESCO were carried out and implemented.
"There is still a path ahead of us on which we must work to further ensure a protection system of unique universal value, through the adoption of a management plan, improvement of the control and supervision system, as well as more efficient work of institutions in the protection system. All this, for the most part, represents the essence of the decision of the UNESCO Committee," he adds.
He said that the status of Kotor on the UNESCO list is not a matter of mere formality:
"Kotor is recognized by civilization as one of the rare jewels of our planet, and its exceptional universal value, something that has been given to us to protect. It is our obligation to first preserve that value, and only then to make its formal presence on the list a priority. "We are fully committed to this civilizing obligation, which we have proven so far with our actions. Any contrary action would mean being written off from civilization, which Kotor will never allow itself," he concluded.
"Don't let UNESCO give up Durmitor"
Gazdić said that Montenegro must not allow UNESCO to renounce Durmitor, and that the current situation is alarming.
"Instead of UNESCO adding areas of our country to its list, we have come to a very difficult position, we need to fight and save the titles we have," Gazdić said.
He also says that it is devastating "that the army and the police are defending our nature".
"We are defending ourselves. Our rivers and lakes are full of garbage, the exploitation of gravel is huge. However, we have also done something good: we have protected marine areas, audits of protected areas have been carried out... We have cleaned up some of the most dangerous ecological black spots, and eco-volunteers managed to fight against the illegal exploitation of gravel. We have entered the war against the forest mafia, but it is only necessary that the profession be in the protection of nature, not capital and investors," Gazdić pointed out, as reported by Portal RTCG.
He said that for the next four days they are organizing a scientific meeting in Plav and Gusinje, because that part of Montenegro has been unfairly neglected.
At that gathering, Gazdić announced, there will be discussions about the biggest problems the country is facing in terms of environmental protection.
Gazdić pointed out that so far only work has been done on "extinguishing the ecological idea" which was our development opportunity.
"Instead of following a healthy idea, we repeated other people's mistakes. Our most important branch, tourism, is threatened because of the nature that has been devastated," he noted.
The conference was organized on the occasion of the jubilee - 15 years since the establishment and operation of the EPA and 32 years since the declaration of Montenegro as an ecological state.
Gazdić said that a session of the Council for the fight against corruption was held last week and that they talked about the fight against the "forest mafia".
"Our experts are on the ground every day and have to step on every foot of our territory and there are incredible examples of forest destruction. This is the case throughout the territory of Montenegro and the situation is terrible, and that is what motivated us to start this story. We will persevere, as we have for the illegal exploitation of gravel, and it is a story that was triggered by instability and crisis," Gazdić pointed out.
He said the police were "doing a very good job" on the ground and were engaged to find out who was cutting down the forests.
"On the ground, we have confiscation of equipment and trucks, but the damage is difficult to assess," says Gazdić.
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