site.btaForest Management Laws in Bulgaria Have Improved but Systematic Corruption Persists - Analysis

WWF Bulgaria has applied the global conservation organization's Enabling Environment Assessment Tool in Bulgaria for the first time to produce an analysis of forest management in this country.

The analysis outlines the positive aspects and continuing problems in the sector and recommends sustained improvements.

The assessment is based on answers to 150 questions and indicators grouped in three pillars: Policies, Legislation and Institutions (Pillar I); Planning, Decision-making and Dispute Resolution (Pillar II); and Implementation, Law Application and Compliance (Pillar III).

The overall performance of Bulgaria's forest management is satisfactory. The lowest scores are in Financial Incentives, Economic Instruments and Benefits Sharing (Pillar I), in Capacity of Interested Parties (Pillar II), and in Law Application and Measures for Handling Corruption (Pillar III).  

The assessment finds improvements in Bulgaria's laws, policies and mechanisms underlying a functioning forest management framework, including for the participation of interested parties. 

At the same time, major omissions and persisting problems prevent this country from having a fully accountable forest sector, the WWF report reads. They include political interference, systematic corruption and misapplication of the law. Financial sanctions are too low to have a preventive effect. Civil sector organizations are ineffective as independent observers and a corrective of the State's activities in the forest sector.

Based on the assessment's results, the report makes recommendations intended to help decision-making on changes in the forest sector policy. Among the key recommendations are: improve the legal and administrative framework to prevent and eliminate opportunities for political pressure on the forest system; provide public access to reliable and current information and data on forests; increase financial and criminal sanctions for crimes in the forest sector; and improve the regulatory framework to curb possibilities for unfair competition and eliminate possibilities for standing timber harvesting.

WWF Bulgaria Forest Programme Manager Neli Doncheva commented that they expect the report's conclusions and recommendations to be used in the current drafting of a National Forest Strategy, WWF Bulgaria said in a press release on Monday.