In his Facebook account Alexander Dunchev revealed another large-scale scheme for illegal timber in Bulgaria. He posted photos showing trucks loaded with wood. Dunchev explained that there are 10 of them transporting between 100 and 300 m3 of illegal material, leaving the forests of Antonovo Municipality for the factories in Svishtov and Veliko Tarnovo.
All this was disguised as clearing bushes in pastures. And for nearly a month after the first reports were filed, the state has been powerless to stop the large-scale deforestation and theft scheme of the local government and front companies, Dunchev insisted.
“In the month of January 2023 alone, 8,000 m3 were cut down, and in the whole of 2022, a record 80,000 m3 (1.2% of the country’s logging) were cut down through 2,000 fictitious ‘grazing land clearance’ permits of the municipality. A proportion is from deforestation of over 5,000 acres of young forest on self-forested grassland, but the vast majority is from theft on other people’s forests and properties. Due to political and corrupt pressure, forest inspectors from the Shumen Regional Forest Inspectorate are only mute witnesses, and probably accomplices in the schemes, and the only measure taken after our signals is a polite letter from the Shumen Regional Forest Inspectorate to the municipality „to stop breaking the law”, wrote Alexander Dunchev.
He has also revealed who he believes is behind this large-scale scheme to deforest and plunder the oak forests on the outskirts of the picturesque Bulgarian villages in Antonovo Municipality with the sonorous Bulgarian names of Kapishte, Pchelino, Moravka, Prisoina, Lyubichevo, Svirchovo, Stevrek, Velikovtsi, Glogovets, Chekantsi and dozens of others.
The facts according to Dunchev are as follows:
- All permits for „clearing pastures“ under the Law on the Protection of Agricultural Property, which violate the Forest Law or allow clear cutting of forests or theft from other forests, are issued by the Municipality of Antonovo.
- All transport tickets for the transport of harvested timber based on these permits are issued by Antonovo Municipality staff – on average 10 runs per day in good weather.
- Until 2017, the mayor of Antonovo Municipality was the former MP Taner Ali from MRF, and after 2017 the mayor was Khayreddin Mehmedov also from MRF.
- 90% of the harvested wood is transported by trucks not as firewood for the local population, but for the factories in Svishtov and Veliko Tarnovo, and the main companies that are used to be listed in the transport tickets of the Municipality of Antonovo are Niyaziev Les Ltd, Stoyna Sarsakova Ltd, I-em-s-group Ltd, Les Trade M Ltd and Traidcom 2013 Ltd.
- These 80 000 pl. m3 (or nearly 150 thousand pr. m3) harvested in 2022 are sold by these companies to the factories for a minimum of 150 BGN/m3. Their logging costs are less than 30 BGN/m3. Property owners are most often paid nothing because the scheme is called „clearing pasture“. So the net profit from this scheme is 80000 m3x120 BGN/m3 = 10 million BGN!
Dunchev stresses that now the important question remains, where does this money go? And explains:
“In any case, it’s not going to our children’s education, our parents’ pensions or our teachers’ salaries.”
“If you do not want to stand indifferent to the destruction of Bulgarian forests and statehood, join our calls and signals to state institutions – the Ministry of Agriculture, the Forestry Agency, the Prosecutor’s Office, the Governor, etc., to stop this lawlessness and theft of millions. Only together we can defeat them!”, Dunchev wrote.
