Actual

The Triglav national park

Slovenia has had parliamentary elections in September 2008. All proposals for the new legislation that have not been voted on during the parliamentary procedures had to be abandoned. The law on the Triglav national park has not been passed – so the whole procedure has to start again.

The Coalition for the Triglav National Park has sent a letter to the minister of environment on 16^th January 2009. The letter suggests that an independent committee should prepare the draft law on Triglav National Park. Eight years long work on preparation of the new law - the last two years within the special commission of the Ministry of environment have been unfortunately lost in vain. All the voluntary work of the nongovernmental side including several experts even some key people from IUCN had no effect either.

A meeting of the members of the Coalition for the Triglav national park and Ministry of the environment took place on 25th of March 2009. We were informed that the draft from the previous team is to be used for further ministry and potentially parliamentary acceptance procedures. We informed the state secretary and his team that we believe that the draft should have followed the principles used by the IUCN and that the current draft could only lead to category V - protected landscape instead to category II - national park. A final decision was made that we make a new set of our amendments to the draft within two weeks.

We have been invited to participate on a discussion about sustainable development with the representatives of the government of Slovenia on 10^th April 2009. We will participate at the discussion with the topic about pristine areas of nature and ecosystem services.

We have sent comments on the draft law on Triglav national park to the Ministry of environment on 19-April-2009. We are also in the process of preparation of a simple document describing basic principles of natural reserves for general public.

We had a meeting with the experts for public transport at the Ministry of transport on 21-April-2009. We both found some opportunities for possible joint activities.

The meeting with the representatives of the Ministry of environment and the mayors of the communities on 22-June-2009 showed the intentions of the government to close the proposal procedures before summer parliamentary holidays. No arguments from the NGOs about severe failures in the text were strong enough to stop the further procedure. The major time of the meeting was dedicated to the list of conditions produced by the mayor of Bohinj and neighbouring comunities.

Manifestation for the Triglav national park and protection of dark sky

We are organizing a night hike up to the Plesišče – hill above Pokljuka plateau to attract attention about the plans to considerably enlarge the Cross Country Centre at Rudno polje. The project involves several kilometers of paths coated with tarmac and illuminated by night.

We think that the enlargement of the sport infrastructure and particularly night illumination is unsuitable for a forested area in a national park. We demand that the elementary principles of spacial planning and landscape protection should be respected. Light pollution should be avoided not only because of general Slovenian legislation but also because of the nature conservation of the national park.

The walk will be a protest against new planed developments within the national park. It will also be our way of celebration of the year of astronomy in 2009. A crash course of astronomy will be held on the top. We will observe attractive stars and constellations with our friends astronomers who will also explain influence of the light pollution from the cities on the spot.

Wind farm Volovja reber

The DOPPS - The Slovenian branch of the BirdLife International have got the permition to be involved in the procedure for the decision about the impact on environment for the planned wind fram on Volovja reber on 27^th March 2009. This is the first case that a nongovernmental organization got the possibility to be involved - after four years of its legal procedures at various courts.

Further plans in 2009

We plan to organize some more activities for rising awareness of the general public in the year 2009.