Bulgaria Lobbies Allies to Soften UNESCO Pirin Park Decision

Australia intervened at Thursday's annual meeting of the UNESCO's World Heritage Committee in Bahrein to stop some Bulgarian amendments to the Commitee's decision on the Pirin National Park - a UNESCO heritage site.

The UNESCO Committee adopted a decision on the national park at its 42nd session on Thursday that incorporated only some of the changes Bulgaria sought.

Australia said a strategic environmental assessment had to be undertaken for the spatial planning for the current management plan - which the Bulgarian government changed in December 2017 - and said this should include a specific assessment of the plan's potential impact on the environment.

The World Heritage Committee consists of representatives from states that are parties to the 1972 World Heritage Convention. At its annual session, it reviews the state of conservation of World Heritage sites and inscribes new sites on the World Heritage List.

Aheasd of the annual meeting, Bulgaria lobbied for the support of 11 countries for its amendments to the UNESCO decision - Azerbaijan, Cuba, Burkina-Faso, Bosnia, Zimbabwe, China, Tanzania, Brazil, Tunis, Kuwait and Angola.

Its amendments diluted the proposed text by deleting all mention of a Supreme Administrative Court ruling, rejecting the Bulgarian Environment Ministry's decision not to undertake a Strategic Environmental Assessment for the new park management plan.

They also removed the Committee's own expression of concern about the changes to the current management plan that Bulgaria made in December 2017.

The Committee had called for those changes not to be implemented until the courts decided on a new draft management plan - still pending - engaging NGOs and other stakeholders in its drafting and implementation, and...