English - Convention on Biological Diversity

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COUNTRY STUDY FOR BIODIVERSITY OF THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA
• Montreal Protocol on Ozone Layer Depleting Substances (Montreal, 1987) - ratified
on 10 March 1994;
• London Amendment to the Montreal Protocol (London, 29 June 1990) - ratified on
27 May 1998 (Official Gazette of RM 25/98);
• Copenhagen Amendment to the Montreal Protocol (Copenhagen, 25 November
1992) - ratified on 27 May 1998 (Official Gazette of RM 25/98);
• Montreal Amendment to the Montreal Protocol (Montreal, 17 September 1997) -
ratified on 30 July 1999 (Official Gazette of RM 51/99);
• Basel <strong>Convention</strong> on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes
and their Disposal (Basel, 1995) - ratified by law (Official Gazette of RM 49/97);
• United Nations <strong>Convention</strong> to Combat Desertification in Countries Experiencing
Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa (UN, 2000) - ratified
in February 2002 (Official Gazette of RM 13/02).
These international acts define extensive obligations which must get their normative
expression in the national legislation. As a matter of course, the harmonisation of the
national legislation with both the ratified international agreements and those still under
the ratification procedure should be a priority task in the normative policy of the sphere
of biodiversity conservation.
6.2. Protected areas system
6.2.1. Description of extent, location and coverage of protected areas
According to the official data, which was based on previous scientific research, there
should be approximately 107 protected areas of differing categories covering about 18%
of the land surface of the Republic of Macedonia. Despite five decades of organised
conservation of natural rarities, however, the network of protected areas now includes
only 68 sites covering an area of 170,235 ha or 6.62% of the land surface.
The status of protected properties by category are as follows:
• three national parks encompassing 108,338 ha or 4.21%;
• three sites of special natural character covering 2,338 ha or 0.09%;
• 14 areas outside nature reserves containing certain plant and animal species, 2,709 ha
or 0.10%;
• 48 natural monuments encompassing 56,850 ha or 2.22%.
It is recommended that an additional 39 natural properties be included in the system
of protected areas. These are:
• two national parks;
• nine strict nature reserves;
• 14 scientific-research reserves;
• 14 sites of special natural character.
By geographic location, both the currently protected natural properties and those yet
to be protected are distributed throughout Macedonia. Most of them are located in the
western part of the country, with some also being present in regions with tourism.