A scar on Galičica visible from the lake: 17,000 square metres of state land usurped, institutions silent for three years

From Lake Ohrid you can see a scar on the slopes of Galičica. It is not natural. According to the civic initiative "Ohrid SOS", it is the trace of three years of illegal construction and usurpation of state land at Lagadin, in the sustainable-use zone of Galičica National Park - and of three years of institutional silence.

The activists say that as early as spring 2023, following reports from citizens, they repeatedly requested an emergency inspection: what is being built, with what permit, and whether state land is being encroached on. There was no answer. Not even an inspection report, if an inspection ever took place at all.

The park established the violations itself

The most unusual thing about this story is that the violations were not "invented" by activists. In 2024, again following a complaint from local residents, representatives of Galičica National Park itself carried out an on-site inspection. Over an area of 17,000 square metres, on cadastral plot 1/1 in the Elšani cadastral municipality, owned by the state, they recorded land usurpation, forest devastation and illegal construction work: a retaining wall, a reinforced concrete slab under construction, rock excavation, a newly cut access road and compromised stability of high-voltage power line pylons. According to the findings, the work was carried out by the owner of an accommodation facility, without any decision or approval, and the park was neither informed nor asked for consent.

On a neighbouring state plot, KP 2/1, inspectors also found a two-storey extension on top of a house that had already been built illegally. That same year the State Inspectorate for Forestry and Hunting established that forest on state land had been destroyed to build a road and several structures.

The national park filed complaints with the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office, the police in Ohrid, the State Inspectorate for Construction and Urban Planning and the State Attorney's Office. Four addresses. According to "Ohrid SOS", photographs from 2026 show that nothing on the ground has improved. "We don't know whether what was found during the inspection is the same thing we see in the photos today, or whether even more land has been usurped in the meantime," the initiative says.

UNESCO is watching, the institutions are waiting

All of this is happening in a region that has been under UNESCO protection since 1979 and that has spent years balancing on the edge of the List of World Heritage in Danger. The government asked for more time to meet its obligations, and the draft decision of the World Heritage Committee in July this year noted that progress has been limited and that the main threats have still not been removed. The activists are also sounding the alarm about new buildings along the shore, structures that are not being removed despite earlier initiatives, and plans for a concrete wall near the Studenčišta canal, home to several well-known beaches.

When a state institution establishes that someone has usurped 17,000 square metres of state land inside a national park and files complaints in four places, and three years later the scar is still there, the question is no longer who built it. The question is why nobody stopped it. The prosecution, the police, the construction inspectorate and the state attorney each have a complaint on their desk. How many more UNESCO reports have to go by before one of them opens it?