Eco-activists are demanding urgent protection for Kozuf, Dosnica and the biodiversity of that region. According to the Centre for Climate Change, this is natural wealth of exceptional national and international significance - one that requires timely, systemic and long-term protection, not just declarative promises.

The demand is concrete: to begin fieldwork and an analysis of biological diversity, so that protection rests on data rather than on goodwill. Kozuf has been mentioned for years as an area of enormous potential - for both nature and tourism - but potential without protection most often ends up as the excuse for exploiting it.

The problem with nature protection in Macedonia is old and predictable: declarations are free, fieldwork costs money, and that is why there are plenty of the first and rarely any of the second. The activists know this, which is exactly why they are demanding concrete steps, not one more statement of support.

The question is whether the institutions will react before the damage or, as so many times before, only after something irreversible happens. Nature does not wait for procedures and working groups. Once biodiversity is lost, it does not come back with a new press release - and Kozuf, if neglected long enough, risks becoming one more name on the list of what we used to have, and no longer do.