Initiatives for the Protection of the Sources and Canyon of the Sana River Accepted

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The Ministry of Spatial Planning, Civil Engineering and Ecology of Republika Srpska has accepted initiatives to initiate the procedure for declaring protected areas on the Sana River, submitted by the Center for Environment in January 2019.

These are two initiatives concerning the declaration of the protected area “the sources of the Sana River with the Mračaj sinkhole” and “the protected area of the Prizren Grad canyon”, the Center for Environment announced.

“Although the Medna hydropower plant has disrupted the environment of the entire upper course of the Sana River and altered the conditions for the protection and declaration of the Gornja Sana Nature Park, the new initiatives of the Center for Environment are important to preserve and protect the remaining natural values of this area. The Institute is ready for this task and we are happy to have the opportunity to work on the protection of this beautiful river, which certainly deserves it,” emphasized Dragan Kovačević, head of the Department for Natural Heritage at the Institute for the Protection of Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage of Republika Srpska.

The next step is for the Institute to prepare a protection study, based on which an act for declaring the protected area will be adopted.

These initiatives stem from a previous initiative submitted during the campaign against the construction of the small Medna hydropower plant back in 2012. That initiative aimed to declare preliminary protection and stop the destruction of this river. It was accepted, and a protection study was prepared, but due to activities on the construction of the Medna hydropower plant, this process was halted.

After the construction of Medna, the relevant ministry contacted the initiator with a letter requesting a statement on whether we would maintain the initiative for the Sana Nature Park.

“At that time, after consultations, we concluded that this example could be misused in the future as a justification for building hydropower plants in protected areas, so we abandoned that initiative. However, in order to protect what is most valuable and prevent the potential construction of new hydropower plants on the Sana, we launched these two initiatives, excluding the area where the disputed Medna hydropower plant is located,” the Center for Environment explains.