Serbia gets new national parks for the first time in 40 years

Photo: Institute for Nature Protection

As of today, the areas of Stara Mountain and Kucaj-Beljanica Mountain are under the highest level of state protection as national parks, because the procedure to protect them as such has been launched, Minister of Environmental Protection Irena Vujovic has said.

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"These are the first two national parks that will be declared in Serbia after 40 years, and they earned that status because of the great natural wealth in their territories. Studies for new national parks prepared by the Institute for Nature Protection have been posted today on the website of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and from that moment, the protection procedure has been officially launched, i.e., all protection regimes and measures contained in the studies are already in force," said Vujovic, and added:

"When the procedure is over, the plan is for the Stara Mountain National Park to cover 116,000 hectares, while the Kucaj-Beljanica National Park will cover about 45,000 hectares. It is extremely important for us to continue to take care of nature and to preserve all natural goods in the best way for future generations. That is why we initiated the procedure and we will declare these two areas as national parks, where nature enjoys the greatest degree of protection."

Vujovic stressed that the protected area of Stara Mountain is one of the most valuable and most visited in Serbia, which, in addition to the beauty of the landscape, is also characterized by the richness of the flora and fauna. Kucaj-Beljanica, she said, is a woodland, with preserved oak and beech forests, but also caves, gorges and canyons.

The minister said that until now, Stara Mountain has had the status of a nature park, and that declaring it a national park will give it the maximum degree of protection. As she added, the Kucaj-Beljanica area is now under protection for the first time. Otherwise, the last time new national parks were declared in Serbia was in 1981 - the mountains Tara and Kopaonik.

(Telegraf Biznis)