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In a letter signed by 56 civil society organizations addressed to the Council of Ministers and the Assembly, the withdrawal of the draft law from the agenda of the Assembly and the reopening of a new consultation process with the public and the community of environmental experts is requested.
The legal changes came as an initiative of some socialist deputies and envisage opening the way for investments and industrial activity in the Natural Protected Areas by reducing the level of their protection and giving municipalities the right to administer these territories.
"To undertake as soon as possible the procedures for withdrawing the consideration of this draft law from the plenary session; To make public the relation that accompanies the draft law; The Assembly should reopen the public consultation process together with the public hearing, a process which has not been fully implemented and has been hindered by the technical defects of the consultation platform" - says the letter signed by the organizations.
The organizations request that this draft law be reviewed through a regular legal consultation process with the public and that it be heard with stakeholders in order to make this process transparent.
The draft law was also opposed on Tuesday by leaders of these organizations during hearings in the parliamentary Committee on Productive Activities, Trade and the Environment.
Taulant Bino, leader of the Orintology association, told the deputies that these changes were an attempt to treat these areas as "municipal flower gardens".
"The draft law equates protected areas to non-natural "municipal flower gardens" which, despite the functions they perform for the community, have no value and natural function from the point of view of habitats," he said.
According to him, the "principle of suitability" proposed by the SP deputies is dangerous and legislates the destruction of the PAs.
He brought as an example the Pishë Poros area in Vlorë, where a part of the protected landscape of the pine forest burned during the summer.
"Currently, this area does not fulfill the principle of suitability and this principle facilitates its alienation" - said Bino, adding that, "if it was burned with the intention of opening up the land, then this principle formalizes the hidden intention of the perpetrator".
"The tendency of the draft law is to treat protected areas, simply and only as economic areas" - insisted Bino, in the opposition before the commission, where he presented the arguments for each article of the law.
According to him, the changes foresee that in the interior and the heart of these areas, any kind of unstable and unacceptable economic activity can be developed for the preservation of their ecological integrity, natural habitats and species of wild fauna and flora that they shelter.
Mirjan Topi, executive director of the Bird Guide, shared the same position with the commission, who requested the withdrawal of the project, calling it confusing and in open opposition to the guidelines of the international community for the protection of nature.
"This draft law contradicts the purpose of the law on the ZM, the amendments create conditions for the National Council of the Territory to allow large infrastructure works to be built within them, the extraction of hydrocarbons, urban enclosures, which exploit and degrade nature" - u he told the MPs.
Also, he opposed the proposal for the transfer of powers to the municipalities for 20 percent of the territory of these areas and the removal of zoning within them.
According to Topi, changes to the law could come after an analysis of the applicability of the current law and a broad consultation with the public, which did not happen in this case.
The chairman of the commission, Arben Pëllumbi, told the leaders of the environmental organizations that despite the fact that the draft law was put on the calendar to be voted on in the session of February 15, the Assembly was in no hurry to approve it without hearing the interested parties.
He repeated several times that the changes did not affect the purpose of the law for the protection of these areas and defended the proposals as a need from the municipalities to exploit their potential.
Meanwhile, MP Fadil Nasufi, one of the initiators of the changes, argued that 1/5 of the territory could not be left only for conservation, without looking at the economic benefits.
The SP deputies who signed the draft of the bill say that they were inspired by a letter signed by a dozen socialist mayors who requested the change of the law and the right to administer these areas in their territory for the needs of economic and tourist development. / BIRN
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