A new generation of activists puts up barricades to defend Natura 2000 in Bulgaria and elsewhere in CEE
By Pavel Antonov
Each weekday morning Christina, 37, walks from her apartment block to the nearby avenue and hops onto a 'marshrutka,' one of the many crowded minibuses that roll along Sofia's hectic streets. At 8:30 A.M. she sets her morning coffee on her desk and starts work. As a junior administrator at Bulgaria's Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, Christina (an assumed identity, at her request) has a job that many people her age dream about, but ambition hasn't prevented her from spending part of every Thursday morning for the past few months in front of another government building, the Council of Ministers, which is where she coordinates a group of young people protesting against the ongoing destruction of Bulgaria's wilderness heritage.
The assault on biodiversity is nothing new in Europe, but efforts in opposition are also making history. On May 21, conservationists celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Habitats Directive, which many call the EU's most important legal tool for preserving biodiversity. The directive's key achievement thus far is Natura 2000, a network of protected areas in Europe that currently covers roughly one-sixth of EU territory. But among the EU laws Bulgaria had to digest quickly on its way to accession, it is Natura 2000 that has proven the most contentious. Mayors, construction firms, municipalities, government ministers, and even some NGOs, have been involved in a bitter row with the European network since last November. Christina and her friends, with the support of several green NGOs, are getting involved in the verbal fray as well, but pro-environment activists claim to be outnumbered.