"It is a minute before twelve to save Muránská planina," stated the Slovak Environment minister Ján Budaj on Tuesday. The National Park of Muránska planina with its wild mountain karstic landscape and minimum human interventions is located between the central and eastern parts of Slovakia, in the Rožňava and Revúca districts. The Environmental Ministry wants to team up with Agriculture Ministry and other local actors to prepare a socio-environmental vision of the future of the special locality. Ján Budaj would like to see the revival of the region, for example, in the form of support for traditional farming and young farmers, who would again bring economic and environmental value to the region.
What, however, arose controversies among the locals is the zoning of the Muránska planina National Park. Up to 50 percent of the national park is to form a non-intervention area. Of this, 93 percent of this strictest protected zone lies on state land under the administration of state forests, seven percent belongs to non-state owners. According to the locals, the zoning proposal could increase unemployment in the region and cause an outflow of population. The unemployment rate in the Revúca district at 20.74 percent is among the highest in Slovakia. 7, 000 people from the region have already signed a petition protesting against the proposed changes.
"We are a hunger valley. Not just the valley, but the whole district. People really don't have job opportunities, and those who do, usually find it in forestry," said on Wednesday the mayor of Muráň, Roman Goldchmidt.
"I am convinced that the region deserves government support and that we can reconcile its preservation and the protection of its natural values with socio-economic development," said the Environment Minister after the government meeting on Wednesday.
