Phantom route in Pobiti Kamani is owned by the Ministry of Agriculture

The illegal track in the protected area “Pobiti Kamani”, which destroyed nearly 7 acres of the protected area, is owned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The Ministry denies having leased the area. To the extent that no control was exercised and the track existed with the tacit consent of the department, it was responsible for it, lawyers said. The local forest department, which manages the land, has checked itself. It claims there are no violations. The prosecutor’s office refused to disclose details of the investigation – who destroyed a protected area and with whose unofficial permission or “blind eye”.

Sergei’s alert

A chain bulldozer excavating the Pobiti Kamani protected area and cross bikes riding into the natural landmark. Sergei Panayotov came across such a sight at the end of last year when he reported it to the police and the Regional Inspectorate for Environment and Water (RIEW) in Varna. The man, who passes by the area almost every day, claims that bikers from all over Eastern Bulgaria come here to ride.

The Varna eco-inspection carried out four inspections – on 30 and 31 December last year and on 2 and 18 January this year, during which “no violations of the protected area’s regimes” and “people and motor vehicles” were found. However, ‘disturbed ground surface on which a motocross track has been laid out’ and ‘traces of heavy tracked equipment’ were found. “An area of approximately 5-7 acres has been disturbed from the area of the “Pounded Stones” SMZ. The natural appearance of the protected area has been altered,” according to the results of the inspections, which were provided under the Access to Public Information Act. However, according to insiders, no surveying has been carried out to establish the exact dimensions of the disturbance.

The Varna District Prosecutor’s Office and the National Police Directorate General have been informed about the case. Unlike the eco-inspectors, the police encountered motorists. According to information from our sources, those driving at the time of the inspection were minors, underage or with motorbikes without license plates. As they were on a road off the national network, this warranted that they were not detained and no tickets were issued. They were also not penalised for riding in a protected area. The investigation is focused on tracking down the excavator who ploughed up the protected area.

The District Prosecutor’s Office – Varna, where the case was immediately transferred to, did not allow the disclosure of the investigation materials in view of its initial stage. The response to Ecovarna is dated 25 February this year, almost two months after the institutions were referred.

The RIEW – Varna, are awaiting the identification of the perpetrators in order to draw up acts for them under the Protected Areas Act (PAA). According to the normative act, natural persons are punished with a fine from 500 to 5000 BGN and legal persons – from 1000 to 10 000 BGN.

Who will get burned?

Motocross races and training have been held here for years. The track is called “Varna Lomel”, although officially there is no track here. The track is located 10 kilometers from Varna near the area “Pobiti Kamani” in the village of Slonhevo. The soil is sandy and is an ideal place for training in winter. Last weekend competitors from Varna and the region prepared for the new season.”. Other posts about races being held here have been deleted from social media since the investigation began.

According to Article 10 of the Protected Areas Act, the territory of protected areas is public property. According to the information system of the Geodesy Agency, the terrain on the territory of Aksakovo municipality, is a “forest territory” with the status of “Other type of tree-producing forest”, owned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry – State Forestry. It is managed by the State Forestry – Varna.

EcoVarna formally requested under the Access to Public Information Act to provide data from the State Forestry – Varna (SFV) on the concluded lease contracts for the land on which the runway is located, as well as the amounts received in the state budget as a result of the lease relations. “Forestry State Forestry Varna does not have the requested public information and does not have access to its whereabouts, the forestry’s reply states. The Forestry Service states that there are no lease contracts for land in the Pobiti Kamani Forest Management Area and adjacent to it. An inspection was even carried out by the State Forest Enterprise – Varna, the results of which indicate that “no illegal activity has been carried out on the land on which the speedway is located”. This was stated by the Northeast State Enterprise – Shumen, under whose umbrella the State Forestry in Varna is located, in an official response.

According to the protection regime of “Pobiti Kamani”, the area prohibits the holding of motor vehicle races off existing roads; the movement of motorcycles, ATVs, UTVs and buggies off existing roads in non-urbanised areas.

“Noise” stopped violations

“I went, I saw, I grabbed my head. The boulders are a unique natural formation (yes, and a valuable dune complex, because come on, this battle is ongoing too). However, the nearby village decided to make a motocross track on top. Well, it’s theirs, why not.”

This is just one of the comments of indignation on social networks – of the former Minister of Environment Yulian Popov.

The widespread public backlash after the case was publicized stopped, at least temporarily, the violations in the Pobiti Kamani MPA. Sergey Panayotov has not detected any motorists in the area in recent weeks. Our team did not encounter any of them during its visit to the site. However, we saw numerous micro-litter dumps of household, construction and agricultural waste on the very border of the area. Such that were missing a year ago when we shot a film about the unique place. Some of the plastic bottles and wet wipes had been blown by the wind inland between the limestone columns. Whole sofas, armchairs, TVs, sinks, and belongings have been dumped in the area. They were certainly seen by the eco-inspectors who came to inspect the speedway, but they were not reported in the inspection reports.

Exactly a year ago, our team was in the Pobiti Kamani MPA to tell about the many microsites on the territory. Then we also showed the expanded motocross track around the Sunny South group. Not a single institution came forward. Only the Regional History Museum, which is responsible for collecting the entrance fees, issued a statement to the media that there was no pollution in the natural landmark.

Lots of grandmothers, chillavo baby

The answer to the question of who is responsible for the illegal activity in the sanctuary is fuzzy between at least five institutions. On the one hand is the owner, the Ministry of Agriculture, through its subdivisions in the region, whose prerogative it is to manage the area. On the other side is the Municipality of Aksakovo, where the Sunny South group is located and in whose master development plan it should appear. The management of the protected area “Pobiti Kamani” belongs to the directorate of the Natural Park “Golden Sands”, and the control – to the Ministry of Environment and Water through the Regional Inspectorate for Environmental Protection – Varna. The Regional History Museum is the institution responsible for the so-called “marketing”, collecting the “entrance” fee.

The development of Pobiti Kamani as a tourist site actually implies the formation of sports routes around the protected area, bicycle routes and recreation areas. But these should be in line with a master plan for the management of the entire natural landmark, according to entrepreneurs who want to invest and develop the potential of this area. Varna Municipality as a tourist destination could also benefit more from it. Ever since the time of the former mayor of Varna Kiril Yordanov there has been the idea of creating a legal speedway. To this day, however, there is none. When there is no legal possibility to carry out an activity, the gap is filled by another, albeit outside the law, motorists said.

What is “Stoned?”

The first officially declared natural landmark in Bulgaria, back in 1937. Then the area was also called Dikili Tash. It is located on the territory of 4 municipalities – Aksakovo, Devnya, Suvorovo and Beloslav. Pobiti Kamani is one of the places that Bulgaria proposed to the preliminary list of UNESCO sites back in the early 1980s. In 1995, and later in 2002, the 253-hectare area was declared a protected area. By order of December 2020 it is a protected area under the Biodiversity Act. The aim is to protect and maintain the Ponto-Sarmatian steppes, which in the whole European Union are found only in north-eastern Bulgaria and partly in Romania. To improve the habitats of the spiny softshell and spiny-tailed turtles, the horned beetle and the tiger butterfly, which are protected species under the Bern Convention and the Biodiversity Act.

We will continue to follow the history of Bulgaria’s first natural landmark. Even if the investigation ends with “it’s the one who eats the cabbage, not the one who gives it to him”, civic activism has been at least partially awakened. Sergey Panayotov claims that people from several places in the country are already calling him with similar cases for advice and to alert the institutions.

Photos Sergey Panayotov, Svilena Velcheva