Kresna Gorge is called the picturesque rocky valley of Strouma river, situated in south-west Bulgaria. Strouma River flows from north to south starting near Sofia and running into the Aegean Sea close to Tessaloniki, Greece. In the region of the gorge, the river flows close to the borders with Macedonia, between the two high mountains Pirin and Maleshevska. The ravine is only 20km long but extremely rich in wild animals and plants diversity, the protection of which is of Worldwide and European significance.
The nature of the gorge and the sustainable development of the local economy are endangered by the plans of the Bulgarian government to construct a motorway through it. Since several years non-governmental organisations have been conducting a campaign for saving the Kresna gorge and insisting that the motorway is going around the important territories.
The wealth of the wild nature
In bio-geographical terms Kresna Gorge is the north border of the Mediterranean. The richness of the wild fauna is based on the fact that once during the ice age this territory has been protected from the strong freezing of the climate and the many thermophilic have survived.
The gorge has an extremely rich biodiversity and includes habitats of bear, wolf, otter, 17 species of bats, 135 species of nesting birds, 31 species of reptiles and amphibians, 13 fish species, 419 heteropterous species, 942 species of butterflies and moths and thousands of other invertebrates. It hosts 457 plant species.
No other place in Bulgaria possesses so many species of butterflies, amphibians and reptiles on such a small territory. Concerning the reptiles, Kresna gorge is richer than whole Middle Europe. There is no other area on the Balkans, where on such a small territory such a rich diversity of bats occurs. For many species Kresna gorge is the only known region in Bulgaria.
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