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00:00:00research center, meaning everything is developing intensively,
00:00:03both science and teaching in those departments. The botanical
00:00:06garden itself is an integral part of the University of Belgrade, more precisely
00:00:10the Faculty of Biology, and
00:00:13it is, of course, allowed for all students of the University
00:00:17of Belgrade to visit it without any fee. Besides that,
00:00:19visitors can enter at what we could call symbolic prices and
00:00:23enjoy a full day's stay in
00:00:26the botanical garden. Besides charging entrance fees, you also organize...
00:00:30various events. I assume that's a form
00:00:33of funding. That's right, that's another form of funding. The space
00:00:36in the botanical garden can be, let's say, rented out. Newlyweds often come to
00:00:40take photos or celebrate birthdays. A few people,
00:00:44a small group, can, for a fee, take photos in the
00:00:47botanical garden in an environment that is unique
00:00:51in the very center of the city. On the other hand, various
00:00:54events are organized, but of course, care
00:00:58is always taken, since it's a large space, that there's a certain number
00:01:02of visitors, so that the capacity of the
00:01:04botanical garden isn't exceeded, so as not to endanger the plant life, but
00:01:08it's not just, let's say, because we have a large number of birds here and
00:01:11other species that enjoy the botanical garden besides
00:01:14visitors, and strict care is taken for their protection so that they
00:01:18are not disturbed, not upset, so that all
00:01:21that passes without any interventions, let's
00:01:24say, without endangering natural
00:01:26assets.
00:01:31The Special Nature Reserve "Okanj Bara" was declared by a decree of the Government of the Republic
00:01:34of Serbia in 2013. We entered
00:01:38the protection program in 2008. So the
00:01:41procedure lasted five years and we were declared. The total
00:01:44area of the reserve is 5,480
00:01:47hectares and it covers the cadastral
00:01:51municipalities of Lemir, Melenci,
00:01:54Kumane, and Taraš. First of all, we are protected because
00:01:58of botany. species that are represented
00:02:01here, uh, we have
00:02:04in some elements also bird habitats, but that is less
00:02:08protected, less, less represented, it's more
00:02:11about botany.
00:02:14What difficulties do you encounter in the field? We
00:02:18generally don't have any major difficulties, the biggest problem is
00:02:22the lack of water.
00:02:25Uh, there is a problem, an imbalance, an imbalance in
00:02:28the amount and inflow
00:02:31of water that is annually.
00:02:33We have therefore prepared a project
00:02:37for the improvement of water regime management in the Okanj
00:02:40Bara special reserve in cooperation with the Provincial Institute for Nature Protection, the Provincial
00:02:44Secretariat for Environmental Protection and the Public
00:02:47Enterprise "Vode Vojvodine". That project
00:02:50implies that
00:02:53within the reserve there is a canal network. That canal network is primarily
00:02:57intended for drainage. The project
00:03:00envisages that a
00:03:03controlled inflow of water and retention of water up to a certain
00:03:07level will be established. That water would be retained by a system of overflow dams
00:03:10and that
00:03:14are foreseen up to a certain level, the highest level foreseen
00:03:17by the project. All excesses would automatically be diverted
00:03:21into canals towards the Tisa. A larger
00:03:24shallow water surface would be formed that
00:03:28would be important for livestock, because three villages gravitate
00:03:32here that have several thousand heads of livestock for
00:03:35grazing. It would be important for game and the overall
00:03:38biodiversity would be increased with that amount
00:03:42of water. How are you financed?
00:03:45We are financed first of all, since the Republic
00:03:49of Serbia declared us, we are financed from the budget
00:03:52of the Republic of Serbia, uh, we are financed
00:03:56from our own income, which is income generated by us
00:04:00as managers of the protected area from
00:04:02fees for using the protected area. These are several companies, there
00:04:06are strong companies here, and from international projects.
00:04:09Now, can we mention some plant and animal species that
00:04:13are significant and that inhabit this
00:04:16area? For example, several habitats
00:04:19of ground squirrels, mhm, and we have, uh, regarding
00:04:23plants, we have the sand
00:04:25plantain, which is on the system of protected
00:04:29uh in... the list of protected areas, and this year we started with
00:04:32investigations uh uh
00:04:35the mushroom society from Novi Sad started investigations there.
00:04:39I think we detected about 16-17 species
00:04:42of
00:04:44mushrooms.
00:04:49According to current data, in Vojvodina, 143
00:04:53areas are protected, uh, with
00:04:56most of them having an act
00:04:59on protection. Adopted 16. According to the Law on Nature Protection,
00:05:02they are considered protected because
00:05:06they are on the website of the Ministry of Environmental Protection
00:05:09and completely legitimately, how can I say.
00:05:12equally they have the status of a protected area,
00:05:16so in total we have data for 143
00:05:19protected areas at this moment on the
00:05:22territory of the autonomous province, the area is
00:05:25181,000 hectares, mhm, now plus
00:05:29minus a few hectares, that comes to about
00:05:338.38%.
00:05:35These are the areas that have adopted an act on protection,
00:05:39now those 16 are waiting to
00:05:43be declared, for the procedure of adopting the act on
00:05:46protection to be completed. They
00:05:50approximately amount to about one, a little less than
00:05:531%. If we compare ourselves with the countries of the European
00:05:56Union, what can we say, how far behind
00:06:00Europe are we? The percentage of the area
00:06:03of state territory under nature protection currently in
00:06:06Serbia is around 8%.
00:06:09Here, around 718
00:06:12hectares are protected. We are according to the protected
00:06:15planet website in 39th place out of
00:06:1840 European countries by the percentage
00:06:21of the area of protected areas, by the area
00:06:25of state territory. From us
00:06:28currently Montenegro and Macedonia,
00:06:32and Albania and Moldova, Ukraine,
00:06:35Belarus, all those countries have a higher
00:06:38percentage of protected state
00:06:41territory than Serbia. The Institute for Nature
00:06:44Protection has completed protection studies
00:06:47for another 45 areas that are waiting for some government
00:06:51authority to declare them. If those
00:06:55studies were, if those government authorities were to make
00:06:59a decision on adopting those protection studies, at this moment the
00:07:03percentage of
00:07:07protected areas would rise to over 10% of the state
00:07:10territory. As for those areas that are protected
00:07:14according to these protection studies conducted
00:07:17by the Provincial Institute for Nature Protection, we have a clear and
00:07:21complete picture of how long these procedures take, because on the
00:07:24website of the Provincial Institute we can find their
00:07:28annual reports on work. As for
00:07:31the Republic Institute for Nature Protection in Belgrade, these reports are
00:07:35irregular or do
00:07:36not exist.
00:07:41How long does the protection procedure take on average? The
00:07:44nature protection procedure in Serbia, according to what
00:07:48we can see in the documents that
00:07:51can be found on the ministry's website, takes an average of about nine
00:07:55years. Who has the authority to declare protection?
00:07:59Protection, everyone has the authority to declare
00:08:02it, meaning both the Ministry of Environmental Protection, i.e.,
00:08:06the Government of the Republic of Serbia, on behalf of which the ministry acts, in
00:08:10this case, and the government
00:08:12of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, on behalf of which there is the Provincial
00:08:15Secretariat for Urban Planning and Environmental Protection, and
00:08:19local self-governments. Can you guess why that
00:08:22procedure takes so long? There are several reasons why these procedures take so
00:08:26long. One reason is still
00:08:29the lack of capacity in the ministry
00:08:33in the Institute for Nature Protection. They have a small number of experts
00:08:36who can process all those requests and all those procedures,
00:08:40and one of the more
00:08:43important reasons why these procedures take long are pressures from other
00:08:47sectors, primarily the pressure of forestry,
00:08:51agriculture, then the pressure of mining and
00:08:54energy, who want to
00:08:57postpone nature protection, reduce the area, reduce
00:09:00the level of protection, or in any other way
00:09:04hinder it. Besides the lack of expert
00:09:07people who will perform these tasks, it is evident that
00:09:10nature protection and the institute and the ministry suffer
00:09:14pressure from some
00:09:18powerful sectors, they suffer
00:09:21pressure from political and economic powerful figures,
00:09:24investors who advocate for
00:09:27nature protection to be either prevented or
00:09:31reduced. So these pressures exist
00:09:35and they are in fact the main
00:09:38reason why these procedures
00:09:41are. Certainly, the financial
00:09:44aspect, even after the declaration,
00:09:47represents a significant
00:09:50item because no protected area can
00:09:53function adequately in terms of implementing
00:09:57protection, equipping, improving something,
00:10:01revitalizing areas, habitats
00:10:04within any protected area, if
00:10:07there are not enough finances. Finally,
00:10:10when the authority needs to make a decision on protection,
00:10:14there is a certain kind of misunderstanding and pressure, but this
00:10:17time from political decision-makers. It often happens,
00:10:21especially at the local level, that
00:10:24councilors in the assembly or those who constitute
00:10:27the executive power in the municipality do not understand why
00:10:31an area should be protected and
00:10:34avoid making a decision on protection. For example,
00:10:38we have the case of the city park in Vršac, where the Institute for
00:10:41Nature Protection completed a protection study back in 2001,
00:10:45so 23 years
00:10:48we've been waiting for protection to be declared. You have more such cases in Serbia,
00:10:52meaning there are various
00:10:55pressures from various centers of power,
00:10:58investors, uh, various sectors. What happened
00:11:01there, I can't say, but local self-governments very
00:11:05often, after they are handed this
00:11:08protection study, did not further forward it, did not
00:11:11implement the protection procedure. Is it simply
00:11:15that they need help or what? Most likely
00:11:19it's that. It happens that some protection studies, like for example
00:11:22for, uh, for the protected area of Bosut forests
00:11:26were completed in 2014, and still, more than
00:11:30nine years later, uh, the notification
00:11:33of the initiation of the protection procedure
00:11:36has not been published on the website. The protection study was done back in 2014,
00:11:40right? Bosut forests are still not
00:11:43protected? No,
00:11:46uh, because it was necessary
00:11:48to harmonize with other
00:11:52sectors. The ministry will declare it as a first
00:11:55category, so we hope for some sooner time, because
00:11:59they also wanted to speed that up, with the plan being
00:12:02for it to be a special nature reserve, not a nature park as
00:12:05it was in the first, this first
00:12:08variant. When the notification about
00:12:12the protection procedure is published, then a public discussion
00:12:15and public review follow. The users of that space give their
00:12:19opinions, they give comments on the
00:12:23protection study. And
00:12:27finally, the competent authority, meaning
00:12:31either the government or the provincial assembly or
00:12:33the municipal assembly or the city assembly makes a decision on
00:12:36protection. When that whole
00:12:40procedure is reviewed, meaning from the beginning of the preparation of the protection study
00:12:44to the adoption of the decision on protection, on average
00:12:46in Serbia, nine years pass for 43
00:12:50areas that we observed in
00:12:54some... last six or seven years. After the preparation
00:12:58of the protection study, the next step
00:13:00is for the Institute for Nature Protection to complete
00:13:04the study and submit it to the competent
00:13:07authority for decision-making. That competent authority can be
00:13:11either the Government of the Republic of Serbia or the Assembly of the AP Vojvodina
00:13:15or the municipal assembly
00:13:17or the city assembly.
00:13:22The European average is about 25% for
00:13:25protected areas. You said about 8% in Vojvodina, so
00:13:29is there any hope that we will ever get close to that European
00:13:33average? So, what the European Union
00:13:36talks about, uh, what percentage should be under
00:13:39protection, refers not only to those areas that have an act on protection, but precisely
00:13:43also to habitats of strictly protected species, to ecological
00:13:47corridors, meaning all elements of the ecological network. In
00:13:50principle, that is some percentage
00:13:53that we can expect to be maintained. What about the obtained
00:13:57results, what next? As for the results of this
00:14:00research, these results will help us
00:14:04to, to write some
00:14:07proposals for amendments to the law and for changes in some
00:14:11procedures. We will certainly seek amendments to the Law on
00:14:15Nature Protection, uh, we will seek to shorten
00:14:19the procedures
00:14:21for establishing protection, where in some way, some of
00:14:25those phases are temporally limited.
00:14:28Currently, there are no
00:14:31limitations. Amendments to the law should shorten these procedures and
00:14:35limit the time within
00:14:39which the authority should declare itself on some study.
00:14:41And
00:14:46why is it important to protect natural areas? It is extremely
00:14:50important to protect it because of the diversity of flora and fauna
00:14:54that is found within these protected areas.
00:14:57So, when an area is declared protected, it is precisely
00:15:01because of the presence of these different large biodiversity
00:15:05that it is put under protection. So, it is important to preserve
00:15:08the different, let's say, genetic fund
00:15:12itself in that area. It is important
00:15:15for people to see these plants, animals. Another
00:15:18thing, every link in that chain, in every
00:15:21ecosystem, is important for the survival of the entire ecosystem. Nothing in one
00:15:25ecosystem functions on its own, so every
00:15:29species that seems insignificant to us, perhaps as
00:15:32laymen, is not there for no reason. It has its
00:15:36place and a big role in the specific
00:15:39ecosystem in which it is located, so it is extremely important for the very
00:15:43survival of that protected area for the entire
00:15:46ecosystem that has been put under protection. What if
00:15:49certain areas are not protected? What
00:15:52consequences can we expect? We can expect
00:15:56that that area will gradually lose
00:15:59the values for which protection
00:16:02was proposed. That happens.
00:16:05We need to implement those changes to the law
00:16:09and improve and advance the procedures
00:16:12for making decisions on
00:16:15nature protection. However, that is not enough.
00:16:19We first need to change our value-based attitude towards nature
00:16:23protection. We need to understand as a society why
00:16:26it is necessary to protect
00:16:30nature and why it is and what all
00:16:33benefits we, as a society, as a community, have from protected
00:16:36nature. When we finally realize that, when we
00:16:40grasp it, then those legal
00:16:44procedures and quality legal solutions will function
00:16:47to their full extent. As long
00:16:51as that does not happen in that value sense,
00:16:54we will always have difficulties
00:16:57with implementing the procedure and there will always be those who
00:17:01will want to stop those procedures, delay them, or prevent
00:17:05them.
00:30:20Good evening, N1 daily news begins, I am Tanja Veselinović, this is the news
00:30:24of the day.
00:30:28Ursula Von der Leyen bypasses Serbia on her tour of the Western
00:30:31Balkans. In October, the European People's Party initiates
00:30:35proceedings to exclude the Serbian Progressive Party. Is
00:30:39Brussels' course towards the government in Belgrade changing, or is this just one
00:30:42in a series of reprimands? They
00:30:45are partially reacting to this, they no longer see a stable partner in Vučić or
00:30:49his party.
00:30:53And other topics in the news
00:30:54tonight.
00:30:59Republican election.