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A detailed draft of proposals by Prime Minister Edi Rama's government to amend the law "On Protected Areas" gives attributes to the National Council of the Territory to decide on the use of these areas subject to development and construction permits, legally opening the way strategic investments within them.
The government's draft was sent to the Assembly under the label "opinion" for the draft law initiated by a group of socialist deputies, a procedural trick that seems to try to avoid public consultation.
However, the government's draft drops the essence of the MPs' proposal, which was aimed at fulfilling the request of the mayors to take an active role in the administration of protected areas, but reiterates the other aim to reduce the level of their protection.
In the document approved at the last meeting of the government, proposals coming from the Ministry of Tourism and Environment, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy, the Territorial Development Agency and other ministries are joined.
The main proposals for changing the 2017 law, which imposes numerous restrictions on activities within Protected Areas, comes from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy and the Territorial Development Agency.
The Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy proposes that strategic projects within protected areas be included among the permitted activities.
According to the draft, this ministry proposes that "in environmentally protected areas, construction is allowed only for strategic projects, which are considered by the state to have high potential for the development of the country's economy".
The Agency for Territorial Development also proposes that it is the KKT led by Prime Minister Edi Rama that declares the protected areas, "as the highest decision-making body for the planning and development of the territory and which has in its composition most of of the members of the Council of Ministers".
"The same rule should also be established for the Green Crown (provided in Article 23) or even if the boundaries of the protected areas are reviewed and changed, either by enlarging or reducing the protected area, the approval must be carried out by the KKT, with the proposal of the institutions responsible for the protected areas," the proposal states.
Meanwhile, regarding the activities allowed in the protected areas according to the government draft, they should be determined by the decision of the KKT on the declaration of the protected area or by the approval of the development and construction permits with special regulations.
In the 2017 law in force, these activities had to be clearly defined in the PA management plans.
In advance, the government requests that they be called permitted activities; "strategic investments and activities developed in accommodation structures of excellence, 5 stars or more, in the field of tourism and any other supporting activity/infrastructure or in their function, regardless of whether this is determined in the decision of the KKT on the announcement of the area protected".
Also allow "activities developed in agritourism accommodation structures and any other supporting activity/infrastructure or in their function, regardless of whether this is determined in the decision to declare the protected area."
Environmental activists, who opposed the first draft proposed by Socialist MPs, told BIRN that the government's draft was even more dangerous.
"The opinion of the Council of Ministers takes us from rain to hail. Now the Protected Areas law turns into a legalization and strategic investment law. Everything that was banned can be allowed by the KKT, " said Taulant Bino, head of the Ornithology association.
Bino further explained that the draft turns the KKT into the "God of Protected Areas", as it gives it powers to approve regulations, to decide on illegal facilities, so-called strategic investments and everything else.
Even Nihat Dragoti, an expert on Protected Areas at the Institute for Nature Conservation in Albania, INCA, told BIRN that the main purpose of the draft was to allow strategic investments in Protected Areas.
"When you say strategic investments, it contradicts the principle of the law, because they seriously damage the coast and lagoons," he said, calling the proposal the most "scandalous" of the draft.
Dragoti also emphasized that the new proposals are very contradictory and only add artifice to the existing law, with the aim of giving the exclusive right to the KKT in decision-making by eliminating the management plans that are the basis of the Protected Areas.
In the draft submitted to the Assembly, the government rejected the proposal of the deputies for the administration of 20% of the protected areas by the municipalities, but allowed them to use the pastures. The government also envisages the creation of a parallel structure to the Administration of Protected Areas, called the Office of Administration of National Parks (ZAPK), a technical-administrative institution under the ministry responsible for protected areas, organized at the central and regional level.
All government decisions on the declaration of Protected Areas will be reviewed within 6 months from the entry into force of the law and within 18 months, the Council of Ministers and the responsible ministry will approve the necessary acts for the declaration of protected areas.
The new draft of the government is expected to be reviewed and approved by the Committee on Production Activities and the Environment without consultation with civil actors, since this committee held public hearings with environmental organizations on the draft of the deputies./ BIRN
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