The ecological cost of green-red activism in Vitosha Park

In recent days, public discussions have taken place on the adoption of new management plans for the Vitosha, Pirin and Rila parks. As expected, two camps have emerged in the debates. The first – and larger – is of a wide range of people (athletes, architects, mayors, economists, etc.) who want to replace the lift facilities with newer ones and update the tourist areas so that they truly reflect the places where tourism is practiced anyway (mainly outings and hikes). The second camp was made up of self-proclaimed “green” NGOs, mainly under the umbrella of the “Coalition to Keep Nature in Bulgaria”. [1]

A serious discussion flared up around Vitosha Nature Park, especially after Toma Belev (former director) presented data that about ¾ of those visiting the park do so in their cars. To his surprise, most participants in the discussion united around the idea that lifts are the more environmentally friendly transport (the de facto prevailing understanding throughout the civilized world) and that the lift infrastructure should be modernized, renovated and even expanded. The Greens candidate for mayor himself announced (in another discussion) that building lifts from the mountain peaks to the Sofia ring road is the least he will do in this regard. [2]

In the EKIP we often discuss the economic phenomena of moral hazard and the principal-agent problem that arise in the management of state property. In short, they describe the incentives that state (common and therefore nobody's) property provides to its managers, who can manage it for their own benefit and according to their own goals, by shifting the costs and damages to everyone. Considering that the renovation of the lifts in the Vitosha Nature Park has been blocked for at least 10 years by the current management plan, all the cars that have driven in the nature park and accordingly "gassed" it when burning fuel have caused damage to nature at the common expense. Why those who developed the current plan and managed the park had an interest in the situation remaining like this for so long remains a mystery.

How the Greens support the gasification of Vitosha

According to WWF, Vitosha Park is the most visited protected area in the country – up to 3.5 million people per year. [3] Unfortunately, no exact statistics have been published on the number of cars entering the park, so we will have to use sociological surveys. According to a recent study commissioned by BGNES, 51% of visitors to Vitosha Park got there in their own cars, with another 21% doing so by public transport. [4] If we assume that these approximately 1.8 million people traveled on average two people per car, then we come to the conclusion that approximately 900,000 cars enter the territory of Vitosha Park annually.

In order to calculate the harmful emissions from these cars, we need to specify the approximate distance traveled and the amount of harmful emissions per kilometer traveled. From Dragalevtsi Square to Aleko Hut it is exactly 15 kilometers, and to Laleto – 10 km.; that is, one car travels an average of 12.5 km. A car of the caliber of those we have in Bulgaria emits an average of about 191 g. CO ₂ per kilometer.

Therefore, in order for a car to enter and exit Vitosha, it emits:

[12.5 (kilometers) x 191 (g CO ₂ /km)] x 2 (round trip) = 4775 grams CO ₂

This is 4.7 kilograms of carbon emissions per car. Multiplying this by 900,000 cars per year, we get that the introduction of road transport as the main means of access to Vitosha Park generates 4,304,000 kilograms of carbon emissions or 4,304 tons per year.

In addition to carbon emissions, a car also emits harmful gases such as methane (CH ₄ ), nitrous oxide (N ₂ O) and waste gases from air conditioning installations (HFC-134a). The amount of such gases emitted is about 2.5% of all emissions, but their potential impact on the climate is much greater – if we assume that it is one of the interests of green activists. For example, 1 gram of methane is 25 times more harmful than 1 gram of carbon dioxide, 1 gram of nitrous oxide – 298 times, and 1 gram of waste from an air conditioning installation – 1430 times. Here we should note that the above does not include emissions from public transport, which is used by 20% of tourists in the park.

Last but not least is the noise effect of these 900,000 cars per year and an unknown number of buses. The NGOs from the "Coalition to Keep Nature in Bulgaria" are right that noise has a bad effect on animals in protected areas (it drives them away and annoys them), but then why haven't they practically taken care to actually control the noisiest human activity in a Bulgarian nature park? We all remember the protests of some greens against a several-hour party to close the ski seasons in Vitosha and Banderishka Polyana (it would have woken the bear from its winter sleep). Then why at the same time did one of the prominent representatives of the "coalition" manage Vitosha Park itself and not only allow, but even support, the year-round noise from 900,000 cars and more buses?

In short, the long-standing resistance to the renewal and modernization of the mountain lifts costs society 4,304 tons of carbon emissions per year (+ more harmful gases – 10 kg. nitrogen oxides and 0.5 kg. fine dust particles) – the same amount emitted per year by a small, but not particularly environmentally friendly coal-fired power plant. Since Vitosha National Park is state-owned [5], this damage to nature is borne by the entire society and neither the park management nor the Ministry of Environment and Water is responsible for it, and least of all those posing as environmentalists in non-governmental pressure groups. The situation is even worse if we take into account that a large part of these emissions also affect the nature of private properties included within the park.

[1] Such a legal entity does not exist; it is a colloquial name under which about a dozen NGOs have united.

[2] However, most of those participating in the discussion expressed rather left-wing ideas regarding the expansion of the lift network, which they believed should be carried out by the municipality after nationalization.

[3] http://www.wwf.bg/get_involved/campaign_parks/10_parks/

[4] http://bgnes.com/bylgariia/obshchestvo/4374129/

[5] There are also private properties in Vitosha National Park, but they are a negligible part. However, the negative effect on them has an even greater moral and economic burden, as it is relatively much more concentrated.

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