The Pirin mountains are being challenged by Bansko development companies

Possibly all and proposed Bulgarian ski resorts are mired in multiple battles at various levels to allow for resort and ski area development to continue.
In an unusual twist, Bansko, the country and one of Europe’s most successful resorts of the past decade, is fighting against its UNESCO world heritage site status as it believes this will hamper its expansion.
The Bansko campaign against UNESCO status comes at the same time as the giant Italian Dolomiti Superski region is promoting the Dolomites newly awarded UNESCO world heritage site status as a major sales and marketing tool. Continue reading ‘Bulgarian ski resorts challenge opponents for development’

American President Theodore Roosevelt once said “speak softly and carry a big stick,” referring to the effectiveness of negotiating peacefully while threatening something fierce. Apparently the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) follows the speak loudly and carry a small twig philosophy.
The organization is all up in arms about ski resort development in Bulgaria’s Pirin National Park, which it granted World Heritage site status in 1983, a status that has been increasingly and repeatedly challenged by developers.
UNESCO has held five consultation meetings over Pirin since 2002, and at the most recent meeting the organization issued an ultimatum to Bulgaria, supported by a coalition of 30 Bulgarian environmental groups under the umbrella title For The Nature.  The challenge for UNESCO is that it does not have many  much legal way or ways to threaten.
Continue reading ‘Terse UNESCO demands towards Bulgarian ski resort developers are fruitless’

Bulgaria has developed an unwanted reputation in recent years for seemingly uncontrolled development of ski resorts on land which is supposed to be protected by national and international law.

However with Bulgaria now part of the European Union, Ski Rebel Magazine has learned the EC government is currently looking at numerous complaints by environmental groups about such developments, whilst public surveys in the country have also revealed most of the population is against illegal ski resort development.
Continue reading ‘Bulgarian ski resorts under investigation for overbuilding’

A new guide to environmentally friendly accommodation in Bulgaria has been launched. BalkanTravellers.com currently offers 23 eco-friendly guest houses and hotels which offer the opposite kind of holidays to those for which the country;’s ski areas have become increasingly infamous.

Bulgaria’s countryside is a pristine treasure. Poor and underdeveloped, many regions, with hills and valleys, mountains and gorges, have remained untouched for decades. They are a wonderful destination for travellers with a taste for nature in its full glory and for those who want to escape from the overbuilt mountain resorts.”

Fourteen of the guest houses were recently given a Green House Award by the Bulgarian Association for Alternative Tourism, the State Agency for Tourism and the European Centre for Ecological and Agricultural Tourism (ECEAT).
Typical is the Moravsko Selo Bio-Hotel, situated in the Predela area, 12 km from Bansko and 8km from Razlog, in southern Bulgaria. The hotel is located where the Pirin Mountain meets the Rila Mountains surrounded by wilderness. The hosts use organically-grown fruits and vegetables to prepare food for guests. During the winter, visitors can ski and snowboard on Bansko’s slopes or the local Kulinoto slope.

by Ivaylo Yordanov

Bulgaria, along with several other European countries offers excellent opportunities for skiing and snowboarding in its winter resorts. A huge privilege of Bulgarian ski resorts is that prices of the hotel accommodation, as well as of the winter holidays over all are much more reasonable.
Continue reading ‘Bulgaria winter ski season 2008 – 2009 holidays’

A study of public opinion by the Bulgarian branch of World Wildlife Foundation, polled 990 people, and reported that four out of five Bulgarians supported local nature conservation organisations efforts to stop over-development in the country’s mountains. The number is said o be marked increase on previous studies.
75% of Bulgarians said they did not approve of the construction of new hotels, pistes and lifts in the protected areas in the Bulgarian mountains of Rila, Pirin, Stara Planina, Vitosha and Rhodopi. A similar number said they did not think the Bulgarian government was doing enough to preserve and protect the areas.
Continue reading ‘Bulgarians massively opposed to ‘Over Developing’ local mountains for skiing’

Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev and Construction Minister Asen Gagauzov were among a group of dignitaries and journalists who were left stuck for an hour in a gondola cabin thirty metres (100 feet) in the air at the opening of one of the country’s new mountain resorts earlier this month.
The incident occurred at the opening of the new Bodrost – Kartala resort, 100km (63 miles) south of the country’s capital, Sofia, in the Rila Mountains in the south west of the country on Wednesday. The problem is believed to have been caused by a power supply failure to the new resort, reported to be a common problem in Bulgaria where state infrastructure is struggling to supply the rapidly growing tourism projects around the country. Some reports said that when the power failed gondolas cabins slid down the cable and bumped in to one another, but no one was injured in the incident.
The new 50 Million Leva resort is being built in three phases between 2007 and 2010. Environmentalists were also at the resort’s opening to protest at what they claim to be “irreparable damage” to the area. They claim that the lift construction violates Bulgaria’s environmental protection laws. They claim to have raised the issues with the Bulgarian Prosecutor’s Office, the Ministry of Environment and Water Affairs and the State Forestry Agency last autumn, but say no action has been taken and they are now raising the matter with the European Community.
A large area of the national park land is also reported to have been damaged by a recent eight day forest fire.
The Prime Minister office declined to comment on the gondola incident.