Incredible Bulgaria - The link of the birdwatching with other projects



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The link of the birdwatching with other projects

Dr Petar Iankov, PhD

Dr Petar Iankov

From the above mentioned it is clear that birdwatching is closely connected with all activities and projects which have relation to Nature and conservation. There are direct relations to the BirdLife IBAs project, as the IBAs and the ‘top’ birding sites are the same and preservation of IBAs means preservation of the eco-tourism resource as well. That explains the fact that the only Bulgarian birding guide (and the first Bulgarian ornithological book in English) ‘Where to Watch Birds in Bulgaria’, edited in 1996, was an initiative of BSPB and it appeared a year before the BSPB inventory ‘Important Bird Areas in Bulgaria’. Similar is the connection with all other big conservation projects in Bulgaria, and it is not a surprise that all of them have an ‘eco-tourism’ component. BSPB was one of the main partners of the Bulgarian-Swiss Biodiversity Conservation Programme in its eco-tourism activities. Same should be mentioned for another of the biggest Bulgarian conservation projects: Biodiversity Conservation and Economy Growth Project, executed by the US company ARD. Within this project the National Strategy for Eco-tourism was developed and BSPB again was an active participant in its elaboration. There are lot of common points between the eco-tourism and the some of the main projects of the municipalities.

The birdwatching geography

It was quite a difficult job to identify the optimal birdwatching itinerary in spite of the fact that the best bird sites are well known. Lot of efforts and tests were done in order to combine the requirements of having maximum numbers of species ‘just from the road’, with minimum travel and minimum change of the base hotels (minimum packing and unpacking the luggage). It was found that the best period is the end of the migration and the start of the breeding season. The best combination is one week at the Black Sea coast (with one-day excursion to Srebarna Lake at Danube River) and one day in the Eastern and Western Rhodopies Mountains. Madzharovo area with BSPB Nature Conservation Centre ‘Eastern Rhodopies’ and Burgas Wetlands with BSPB Centre ‘Poda’ are the main starting points for the groups towards the bird areas around. All specific sites with detailed birdwatching information are presented in the BSPB guide ‘Where to Watch Birds in Bulgaria’.

The future?

The forecast for the eco-tourism in Bulgaria is simple: if the so called ‘development’, expressed by intensification of the agriculture, building reservoirs and power stations, expanding the built-up areas and other forms of wild economy will destroy the source of the birdwatching and other eco-tourism economy, Bulgaria will lost one of the most valuable national resource and one of the very few things, which now it has as a country in much more quality and quantity than most of the EU states.