Naser Nuredini, the Minister of Environment of North Macedonia, has placed Shar Mountain under temporary protection until it is declared a national park. As the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning informs, Nuredini has passed a decree in accordance with the Law on Nature Protection for temporary protection of the part of the Shar Mountain which is under a procedure to be declared as a protected area of category II – national park.
The procedure for declaring Shar Mountain a national park is in its final stage, after it has passed the government procedure and awaits the parliamentary procedure for final adoption to start.
With this act, Minister Nuredini partially heeded the environmentalists’ plea, who recently have requested from him – while the administrative procedures are underway – to put Shar Mountain under temporary protection in order to stop any further destruction of nature and the living world. The environmentalists then also requested a revision of the Law for declaring part of Shar Mountain a national park, since they consider the draft law doesn’t offer protection from the small hydropower plants and that it will allow the building of new ones.
