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Protected
status seen as job killer
Several
villages in the famous Tokaj wine region in north-eastern Hungary are
considering renouncing their UNESCO World Heritage status. Some mayors believe
the move would allow them to tackle endemic unemployment in their localities by
removing the barriers to developing a local industrial sector.
Honour or hindrance?
The mayor
of the village of
Tállya, József Osika,
told the daily Népszabadság that the UNESCO status of the Tokaj-Hegyalja
region, to give it its full name, means that factories cannot be built. He said
that, in an area of high unemployment, the region’s protected status is doing
more harm than good.
The mayor
of town of Tokaj, at the confluence of the Tisza and Bodrog rivers that give the wine region its
special humidity, said the idea was the result of “hysteria”. János Májer
claimed that several settlements in the Tokaj region were overreacting to
recent opposition from winemakers to plans to build a straw-fired power plant
in the nearby town of Szerencs.
Májer
claimed there is no barrier to light industry in a World Heritage zone, as long
as its operation does not damage the environment of detract from the innate
value of the region. He noted that being granted UNESCO World Heritage Status
has led to increased development in regions all over the world. The mayor of
Tokaj pointed to a recent HUF 2 billion (EUR 8.04 million) programme to
increase tourism in the Tokaj region, adding that various funds exist for
people who apply with suitably imaginative ideas.
Not been done before
No local
council in Hungary has ever mooted the idea of relinquishing its protected
status, currently shared by tourist attractions such as Aggtelek in northeast
Hungary with its spectacular caves, the picturesque northern town of Hollóko,
and the early Christian necropolis in Pécs in the south, as well as much of the
Buda Castle area and Andrássy út in the capital. Tokaj was granted the coveted
status in 2002. UNESCO cited the “viticultural tradition that has existed for
at least a thousand years and which has survived intact up to the present” as a
chief value of the region.
A spokesman
for the Hungarian National World Heritage Commission said that not only has no
region ever sought to reduce its protected area, Aggtelek in fact increased the
size of its world heritage site by 50 hectares last summer. Gábor Soós added that
disgruntled mayors will be given the opportunity to participate in the next
review of development and countryside management in the Tokaj region. He noted
that although the protection of World Heritage cites is primarily a matter for
central government, in the long run no area will retain the status unless it
actually wants to.
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