Issue No.
13376
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Lesser Prespa
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ENVIRONMENT ministers from Greece, Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as well as European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, on February 2 signed an agreement to protect the Prespes wetlands - a decade after the three countries had agreed to establish a park straddling their borders.
The environment ministers - Greece’s Tina Birbili, Albania’s Fatmir Mediu and Nexhati Jakubi of Fyrom - hailed the agreement to create the first such park in the Balkans as crucial to safeguarding the region.
“We have achieved the first interstate agreement for the protection of an ecosystem in the Balkans,” Birbili said. “We are optimistic on the course of this collaboration with our neighbouring countries and satisfied because this agreement is the culmination of a cycle of efforts to safeguard such a precious natural capital.”
The agreement extends beyond just protecting the environment and includes the promotion of human activities such as farming, fishing, tourism and development of infrastructure, such as building a road around Megali (Greater) Prespa, the largest of the two lakes.
Local authorities and environmental NGOs welcomed the agreement that they said will allow the existing Prespa Park coordinating committee to function more effectively and will also bring in more funding, especially by the European Union.
The agreement, signed on World Wetlands Day, “is very important because it lays the groundwork for a closer cooperation for the benefit of local inhabitants and the area’s natural beauty”, said Thymios Papayiannis, president of the Society for the Protection of Prespa, an internationally funded NGO which runs a number of environmental projects in the area.
The Prespes Park is home to more than 260 species of birds, 1,500 species of plants, 23 species of fish and 60 species of mammals, many of them not found elsewhere in the world.
What has been missing until now was a formal trilateral agreement that would legally bind the countries involved to set up and facilitate permanent cooperation bodies.
The 10-year delay between the original declaration and the signing of the agreement was in part due to slow-moving bureaucrats, but also to the difficult relations between Albania, Fyrom and Greece, notably involving ethnic minorities and, in the case of Fyrom and Greece, the dispute over the former’s constitutional name.
A meeting last November on Lake Prespa between the three prime ministers - Greece’s George Papandreou, Albania’s Sali Berisha and Nikola Gruevski of Fyrom - paved the way for the signing.
“Credit must be given to Prime Minister Papandreou for setting up the meeting and for pressing the issue,” Prespes Mayor Lazaros Nalpantidis said. “However, we at the local level did not wait for the big leaders to come together. I have excellent cooperation with neighbouring cities [Liqenas in Albania and Resen in Fyrom]. Since 2007, we have had sports and cultural exchanges and have discussed ways to improve transport and communication across our borders - to create, in other words, a free-trade zone. You can’t have a transboundary park with border barriers.”
There is also a Prespa Park coordination committee, with representatives from the three countries, which has met 13 times since 2000 to discuss mainly environmental issues.
Why 10 years?
DIVIDED between Greece, Albania and Fyrom, the Prespes region has long been known to nature lovers for its beauty and abundance of rare wildlife.
It is dominated by two lakes, Megali (Greater) and Mikri (Lesser) Prespa, and includes farmland, wetlands, forests and mountains. Until the 1990s, large parts of it were inaccessible due to Albania’s isolation. As well, communication with what was then Yugoslavia (the present Fyrom) had been curtailed by Greece’s 1967-74 dictatorship and had never been restored to pre-1967 levels.
Even after the fall of communism, travel and communication were hampered by the mutually testy relations between the three neighbours.
The creation of the transboundary Prespa Park in early 2000, through a common declaration by the prime ministers of Albania, Fyrom and Greece, was designed to provide common ground for cooperation in preserving the environment and boosting the inhabitants’ quality of life through trade and improvement in farming practices.
The missing link
WHAT HAS been missing in the Prespa region was mainly the money needed to implement more ambitious projects, such as building a road around Megali Prespa to connect the neighbouring countries. The recent agreement between the region’s three bordering nations and the EU should facilitate the funding of large projects like a long-called-for road.
“There is a road on the other side but it... needs repairs and maintenance,” Prespes Mayor Lazaros Nalpantidis said. “There are two feasibility studies on building a connecting road [with the Fyrom road network] but no money thus far.”
Funding
Nalpantidis said he hopes that local government can pitch in. “I’m also applying for funds through [the European Union’s] Interreg programme.”
Some funds have already been available. About 5 million euros has gone towards building a biological sewage treatment system, and other money towards building a dam regulating water flow between the two lakes and improving wetlands.
But this is only a small fraction of what is needed. And Greece, as the only EU member of the three, is the only one which can secure adequate funding.
“The other two [countries] cannot afford to pitch in, there’s not a one-in-a-million chance that they will be able to do so. Greece must do it, through the EU,” Nalpantidis said.
Despite the difficulties, the mayor remains optimistic. “Our quality of life and environment has improved dramatically. But there’s more work to be done.”
Building trust
There have been challenges over the years. Some local inhabitants, Nalpantidis said, have not always welcomed the environmentalists. In 1991, when the Society for the Protection of Prespa (SPP) was founded by several environmental NGOs, there were demonstrations calling for them to get out.
Since then, through the efforts of the SPP and local leaders, relations have much improved. The locals saw that the SPP presence brought visitors, with profitable results: many former farmers have gotten into the hostel business and other locals also earn income from selling beans (beans have become a monoculture, that is, the only farming activity, in the Prespa area) and handicrafts. There is also considerable potential from fishing.
ATHENS NEWS 08/03/2010, page: 6
