EXCLUSIVELY FOR KURIR: We should not let Košutnjak to insatiable investors, who could pave us alive

Eminent individuals – Kusturica, Šabić and Popović have unanimously supported Kurir’s initiative and citizens’ request to prevent the destruction of Belgrade’s green oasis, where Avala Studios was planning to build a commercial-residential complex

For the sake of reminder, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić also supported our initiative to prevent the destruction of around 30 hectares of forest and green spaces in Košutnjak for the sake of construction of around 600,000 square metres of a commercial-residential complex. The President said that the ruling SPP has over the past eight years been fighting for forestation and not the destruction of forests.

Kurir has been writing for days that the Avala Film Park project, i.e. the main contractor and investor Avala Studios planned the construction of a huge commercial-residential complex in Belgrade’s largest green oasis – Košutnjak.

Kusturica says the destruction of nature should be stopped

– I don’t know if someone will appear and go down in history as a ramp to wild capitalism, debauched destruction of cities (if that is at all possible), whether a force will appear to get in the way of damned money or, eventually, just like it happened with Amazon, they will burn and cut down all forests and, finally, pave all meadows and arable land. So that not even a bit of land remains, a square metre of forest, until there is still time, and so that they put us under concrete, all of us, alive. They tried this twice in Mokra Gora and I thought that, after an effective life, it would be worth losing one’s life defending forests, streams and air from the debauched need for profit – says Kusturica.

Natural monument

Šabić says that the idea of cutting down trees is scandalous.

– Even more than a month and a half ago, I was writing that experts were warning it is an area with valuable biotopes, old, rare trees, the area which is practically a part of the natural moment. In this context, such an approach to planning is incomprehensible and unscrupulous – says Šabić.
It would be a crime to cut down even a single tree in Košutnjak – underlines Gorica Popović:

– Those are the lungs of Belgrade, it such a wonderful, healthy and beautiful place, loved by Belgraders. The insatiable investors do not cringe from placing their own interests above everything. I abhor it. We must not let this insolence.

Kurir / Photo:Kurir, AP/Joel C Ryan