NO to Golf-Courses -YES for Permaculture and Ecology in Istria, Croatia

1.  In the last 7 years the Republic of Croatia has claimed the building of golf-courses to be of strategic importance for tourism. According to the proposal of the new physical plan for the Istria Region, there is a plan to build 22 golf-courses and an unknown number of polo-fields. The total construction area for this purpose is estimated to be 3200 hectares (32 square kilometres) or more. As far as is known there is no part of the world with such a large number of golf-courses. The Istrian peninsula is 2500 square kilometres in size, with 200 000 inhabitants (roughly).

 For every particular golf-course there is an actual physical plan offering areas filled with concrete, apartments, villas and hotels, transformation of Istrian forests and fields into construction areas and real estates, pollution with pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, destruction of natural systems (including the Motovun Forrest, one of the world's few natural white truffle resources), endangering and/or destroying autochthonic and natural chains of flora and fauna.

If the project goes through this means direct promotion and support of plans for solely the investors' benefit, instead of promoting of strategic plans which the local population would benefit from, as well as the natural resources and Istria on the whole. Currently very well known as Terra Magica, Istria would become Terra Golfica. 

2. Therefore the European Green Party calls upon the Croatian Government and the government of the Istria Region (in Croatian = zupanija) to: 

-       change the strategy and plans for development so that will include Istrian autochthonism, self-sustainability and sustainable development, permaculture, ecology, job openings for local people and development of green tourism. 

-       set up basic propaganda for Istria as one of the biggest European centres of “green tourism” instead of building a large number of golf-courses, thousands of apartments and villas in areas of land now occupied by forests and fields.

-       organize care, preservation and advancement of all autochthonic Istrian plant and animal life via the principles of permaculture and sustainability.

3. The European Green Party gives full and absolute support to all organizations and individuals who are acting against this megalomaniac project and who are offering permacultural and nature-friendly strategic and sustainable development plans for the Istrian Region.