State of the Environment Bulgaria 2003
What is causing the problems?
Intensive agriculture and the usage of chemical preparations and pesticides are serious threats to the environment. The pressure on wetlands is increasing with the increased consumption of the land within and around them. The quality of the wetlands is crucial for the survival of many populations of migrating hydrophilous birds. The pressure on the ecosystems caused by development leads to changes in the number and the type of birds and populations. Natural habitats are being destroyed due to construction of roads, reservoirs and the excessive enlargement of the settlements. As a result many habitats are torn apart and are restricted to “small islands”, and many ecosystems die. For example, a pair of songbirds needs only 4-dca territories for reproduction, but these territories have to be sheltered deep in the natural forest, in order to allow the survival of the baby birds.
The significant loss of forests also contributes to increase of the global warming and to changes in the overall models for weather and rainfall.
Drought conditions and resulting fires contribute to the decrease of the feeding areas and provokes an artificial migration of game into neighbouring hunting territories. This results in a decrease in the stockpiles of red deer, fallow–deer and hinds in Bulgaria.
Poaching of game also kills elite species. Hunting with forbidden means, in forbidden periods of the year and in forbidden quantities that do not provide for sustainability, threaten the exhaustion and the destruction of the some species. For example hunting the small cormorant at places where it sleeps, a violation of the Hunting and Protection of Game Act and of the Basel Convention, has very negative reflection on the hibernating population.
Last update on March 2003