National Plan for the conservation of biological diversity.

This Bulgarian National Plan for the conservation of biological diversity represents a set of activities that must be implemented in the period from the year 1999 until the year 2003. The activities in the National Plan are defined by Bulgarian and foreign scientists and specialists and experts from the socio-economic sectors in the country that developed the plan. This Plan is a five-year plan. In the distribution of activities by years of implementation, the following was reported: Whether the implementation of the activity has already started; The financial security of the performance of the activity; The need to perform the relevant activity such as a prerequisite for the implementation of other activities from the National Plan; The degree of endangerment of the biological species, the habitat or the ecosystem, object or objects of the activity. The arrangement of the activities in the National Plan follows the order of priority of the main measures in which these activities are involved, i.e. the sequence number of the plan activity can be taken as priority number for the activity, compared to the other activities of the plan. The national plan has defined: The priority measures for the protection and maintenance of the biological variety; The specific activities within the priority measures; The financial means necessary for the implementation of the activities on the plan and domestic and foreign sources of funding; The mechanism for coordinating the actions of the participants in the implementation of the activities under the plan.
This text contains detailed issues regarding the legal framework for the protection of biological diversity, system of national legal norms and their hierarchy among interactions with related international agreements or conventions, harmonization with European environmental legislation, institutional framework for the protection of biological diversity in Bulgaria, and more specific indications and measures regarding the recognized national protected natural territories. The overarching goal in the field of biological diversity is its conservation and maintenance. This objective includes two main sub-objectives: 1) Preservation, strengthening and restoration of key ecosystems, habitats, species and their genetic resources; 2) Ensuring opportunities for sustainable use of biological resources. Goals and main measures are aimed to achieve the conservation of biological diversity throughout country and they are here ranked in the following order of priority: Creation of laws, by-laws and information management documents; Institutional strengthening of biodiversity units; Creation and maintenance of a national ecological network; Expansion and maintenance of the network of protected areas; Restorative and maintenance activities; Strengthening the scientific basis for biological variety conservation; Informational, educational activities and supplementary training.
The object of the National Plan are the following ecosystems: Marine ecosystems; Coastal ecosystems; Wetlands along the Black Sea coast; Danube River and wetlands along the Danube coast; Ecosystems of inland waters and wetlands; Forest ecosystems; Mountain (pasture) ecosystems; Agroecosystems; Plain (grassland) ecosystems. The subject of the National Plan are the activities for the protection of biological diversity in the listed territorial ecosystems, as well as some others activities developing throughout the territory of the country such as the creation of a national ecological network; actions to protect and maintain endangered plants and animals, and other.