Wave of Environmental Actions Hits Macedonia
BalkanTravellers.com
Close to 6 million trees were planted yesterday in about 100 locations throughout Macedonia as part of the massive “Day of the Tree – Plant Your Future” initiative, which BalkanTravellers.com reported about on Tuesday.
The bad weather conditions made the planting of the trees more difficult but did not stop the initiative, the Vecher newspaper reported today. Only in the towns of Berovo and Krushevo the activities were postponed for a few days, because of the 30 centimetres of snow.
Participation in the environmental campaign came from all parts of society – politicians, singers, actors, students, mayors, pensioners, diplomatic corps representatives, citizens, municipalities, the City of Skopje, NGOs, media and companies all took part
“Even with the bad weather conditions, Macedonian citizens came out en masse! I am proud to be part of this kind of a people who demonstrate a high environmental consciousness,” opera singer Boris Trayanov, who initiated the campaign, told Vecher.
It is expected that the other Balkan countries will follow Macedonia’s suit and organise such forestation activities in March of 2009.
In addition to preventive environmental measures such as the tree-planting campaign, Macedonia is also responding to ecological problems that are already plaguing the country. One such response is the increase of fines of the OKTA Oil Refinery, situated just outside the capital Skopje.
The refinery, 54 per cent of which is owned the Greek company Hellenic Petroleum, could now be faced with fines reaching 100,000 euro, or five times higher than it has paid in the past.
“There will be changes to the environmental law with which instead of 20,000 euro for pollution of the air and especially of the underground waters, the fines will be 100,000 euro for the company and for the responsible person – 5,000 euro,” Macedonia’s deputy environmental minister Sonya Lepitkova told the Dnevnik newspaper.
Analyses have shown that OKTA is polluting the air, water and soil more than is permissible, Lepitkova added.
People living in the areas around the refinery have been protesting in front of it since Tuesday, but they – along the new governmental measures, are being ignored by OKTA.
“Production continues. Nobody from OKTA wants to come out and speak with us, even though they are quilty for the high pollution from which we are facing heavy repercussions,” Milivoe Stanovski, member of the protesters’ coordinating body told Dnevnik.
As BalkanTravellers.com reported earlier, a seemingly fake website is advertising package tours to the area around the OKTA refinery, where tourists can spend their holidays in a polluted environment, where – among other things, they can observe the toxins across rivers and the night lights of the factory’s emissions.
It is unclear who is responsible for the website, but one thing is for sure: it serves to bring attention to the ecological damage incurred by the refinery.
Read more about Macedonia on BalkanTravellers.com
Use BalkanTravellers.com's tips to organize your trip to Macedonia
Epicure
Balkans
Bulgaria’s Exclusive Ownership of Shopska Salad Challenged
11 August 2009 | The ownership of shopska salad – considered by Bulgarians as one of the few dishes that is truly their own, was challenged by a Serbian publication claiming that the salad is in fact a pan-Slavic one.
Full Story
Curiosity Chest
Serbia
The Student Cultural Centre in Belgrade, Serbia
Throughout the ups and downs in Serbia’s recent history, the Student Cultural Centre (SKC) has always been a safe haven for city artists, a place to go to remove themselves from the everyday and express themselves freely. Full Story
Useful Reads
Balkans
Through Another Europe (2009) | Edited by Andrew Hammond
When Henry Blount journeyed through Bosnia in the 1630s, two things struck him: the purity of the water and the great height of the Bosnians, which, he noted, “made me suppose them the offspring of those old Germans noted by Tacitus and Caesar for their huge size.”
Full Story
Music
Serbia
EXIT Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia: Overnight Exile in the Fortress
Located roughly in the middle between Bulgaria's Black Sea and Croatia’s Adriatic coasts, which are both shaken by high-energy rock parties each July, Novi Sad hosts one of the most significant summer festivals on the Balkans – EXIT. As fans from all parts of the region start to gather in the town for for this year’s event, scheduled to take place between July 10 and 13, Mila Popova recounts about the time she spent at the festival last summer.
Full Story
-
Photogalleries
-
A Perfect Shot
In Homo Urbanus Europeanus, exhibited May 9-24 in front of the National Theatre in Sofia, Jean-Marc Caracci presents his photographs of people in the urban environment of European capitals.
RED&WHITE SOFIA. On the 1st of March Bulgarians say goodbye to the winter. They buy each other red&white threads to carry around until they see a stork and spring can begin. Photography by Lode Desmet
BULGARIA D'OR: The Bulgarian countryside, patinated with the noble golden dust of the autumn. Photographs by Lode Desmet
360 degrees Bulgaria, an exhibition by photographer Alexandar Ivanov, is on display at the Sea Garden in Varna until August 28. It will be shown at Plovdiv’s Central Square from Sept 5.
The exhibition Photographs of a Trip Through Bulgaria by Hungarian photographer András Balla can be seen in Sofia's Hungarian Cultural Institute, at Aksakov 16 Street, until August 22
Instant Spring in Sofia | Photographs by Lode Desmet
Off-the-season Beauty of Bulgaria's Black Sea Coast | Photographs by Adelina Iliev
Bulgaria's Northern Black Sea Coast
Photographs by Albena Shkodrova
excellent smugs