Prokosko Lake was declared a natural monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). However, illegal construction and off-road driving of quad bikes day after day create a polluted swamp from this pearl of BiH.
Prokosko Lake is a protected area, and the Government of the Central Bosnia Canton (CBC) adopted in March 2022 the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Declaring Prokosko Lake a Natural Monument, which should enable the authorities to better control the area of Prokosko Lake and to stop illegal construction.
However, instead of stopping illegal construction, the authorities decided to legalize existing facilities.
Every day the situation at Prokosko Lake is only getting worse. As Vladimir Topic from the Center for the Environment said, nothing is being done to maintain the lake and prevent new damage.
“The situation is getting worse every year, wastewater from illegally built facilities ends up in the lake,” he said.
According to activists’ reports, a trout was thrown into the lake and it ate an indigenous newt. Locals divert water from the spring into their houses and gardens instead of the spring going to the lake, which dries it up. Experts have already established that the process of turning the lake into a swamp is underway.
Quad bikes that people drive around the protected area and off the road create a big problem as well.
As Topic said, no work has been done on the protection of this area for the last twenty years, which has led to such a situation. Numerous associations fighting for the preservation of Prokosko Lake have appealed to the authorities, but every time they have encountered a wall. In recent years, numerous petitions have been signed, but there have been no results from them.
The situation on Prokosko Lake is a topic that is also dealt with by the Atelier Foundation for Social Change. They counted as many as 346 houses and cottages by the lake.
“For this ecocide and gross violation of legal regulations, you guessed it, no one was held accountable. Apart from a couple of cosmetic activities, the local and cantonal authorities have not taken anything concrete to stop this ecocide, so we can say that the Prokosko Lake is one of the most representative examples of anarchy and dysfunctional systems in BiH,” the Foundation states.
Prokosko Lake has become an example of the terrible attitude toward the pearl of nature of our country and the negligence of the authorities. And while everyone is silent and while some individuals try to earn more money, the natural monument, the protected area of BiH, is slowly disappearing.
Although the authorities are most responsible for the negligence and destruction of the lake, it is the citizens who divert the water, build facilities, drive quad bikes, and leave garbage. This attitude of people towards nature results in the destruction of the natural lake. Prokosko Lake has become a tourist attraction thanks to its untouched nature, but thanks to humans it is suffering a terrible ecological disaster, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
