The Network of Academic Solidarity and Engagement (MASA) condemns the pressures placed on individuals who are supposed to serve society with their knowledge, work, expertise and integrity. This particularly applies to all kinds of pressures on employees in state institutions who, in every functional system, should contribute to making decisions that are in line with the highest interests of society. Recently, thanks to the Center for Investigative Journalism (CINS), shocking information has become available to the public about the case of the preparation of documentation necessary for the Detailed Regulation Plan for the Struganik Dam on the Ribnica River, where a decision of the Institute for Nature Protection of importance for this procedure was made precisely on the basis of pressures on the team that processed the case, and not based on the facts and results of the professional work of the team whose task is precisely the protection of natural values.
After the team entrusted with the case unanimously made a negative decision and argued in detail why "activities on the construction and subsequent use of the Struganik water reservoir would have a multiple negative impact on the overall values of the Ribnica river gorge", the Institute for Nature Protection allowed that under pressure and without arguments regarding the protection of nature, this solution is transformed into a positive one and that the conditions are still issued. In this way, not only a potentially dangerous decision is made, but also to a significant extent, in the long term, it undermines and degrades the integrity of individuals who, with their knowledge and abilities, should contribute to a comprehensive assessment of the consequences of planned projects. MASA demands an answer to the question of how the values of a natural asset can change in just one month, how much has passed between issuing two completely different opinions on the same planned project? This example raises the question of how independent the Institute's work is and how many decisions are still made in this way, which concern our wealth that belongs to future generations as well. How are the interests of citizens and nature protected from possibly harmful projects if the institution, whose task it is, applies pressure to refute its own well-argued decisions?
MASA requests the Institute for Nature Protection to make a statement on this case. Also, we demand that Srbijavode, as the initiator, before further consideration of the megalomaniac project, which is paving the way with an already questionable and dubious procedure, consider alternative solutions for flood regulation downstream from the protected property of the Ribnica Nature Monument. Considering that on a daily level we are witnessing non-compliance with protection measures for protected areas, as well as other consequences of neglecting the profession in almost every area of decision-making, it is time for the institutions responsible for this state of affairs (either through their inaction or wrong decisions) to take responsibility and start working in the interest of the common good.
