I can conceive of only 2 reasons why a tourist would visit Srebarna, tucked away as it is in NE Bulgaria close to the Romanian border – either you are a keen ornithologist or a keen WHS collector. We fitted both categories and visited it in 2000.

The site, just south of the Danube, consists of a lake (formed from an old ox-bow of the river to which it used to be connected until a dyke was built) and an area of marshes where the land drops at the edge of the eponymous village. Most of it is a “Strict Reserve” and closed to visitors. However, the reserve has an Ecological Research and Visitor Station. The latter is a pleasant facility containing an exhibition of stuffed birds and a terrace with a reasonable view over the marshes When we were there the station was very quiet and perhaps a bit “tired” – the exhibits seemed aimed mainly at groups of school children/students who, no doubt, made up most of the visitors when it was built in earlier “Communist days”. From the station a trail leads to a viewpoint overlooking a pelican colony – this is one of very few breeding sites for the Dalmatian Pelican. The scenery (photo) with its reed beds is vaguely reminiscent of the Danube Delta (less than 200kms away across the border) and the bird list is very similar. In fact most of the birds can be seen in the surrounding area without needing to enter the reserve. Around 100 species of birds nest there and its position on the “migratory flyway” means that another 80 or so visit it but, as the IUCN recommendation states, “its small size means that the quantities of birds are not comparable to other larger wetlands”. Nevertheless, as the recommendation also states, “the site is important on a European scale” and it features in books and articles on “Where to watch birds in Europe”.

As would be expected, most of the “wetland biospheres” which make it onto the WHS list are already RAMSAR (Wetland) and UNESCO World Biosphere reserve (WBS) inscribed and Srebarna is no exception. Worldwide there are around 1600 of the former and 480 of the latter and dual designation is not that uncommon. However whether it should also have received the third (and highest?) accolade of “WHS” is perhaps less clear (there are only 160 natural WHS). In so doing it joins undoubted World-class wetland locations like Donana, Pantonal, Danube Delta and Everglades. It is relatively unusual for a natural site to get inscribed on the basis of just 1 of the 4 available criteria (none of the above 4 examples was and I think that, of similar sites, only Ichkeul in Tunisia does so). Yet Srebarna was accepted on the sole basis of Criterion 4 – i.e. it “contain(s) the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity,” Can this small site really meet even that criterion? The Dalmatian Pelican colony isn’t the biggest in Europe (I believe that is in Greece) and (as far as I am aware) the site lacks the White Pelican (whereas both species breed in the Danube Delta). However Bulgaria has always been very active in gaining WHS inscription from the earliest days of the scheme (8 out of 160 worldwide after 6 years when Srebarna was added in 1983) and also in establishing Biosphere Reserves (it has an amazing 16 sites, only beaten in Europe (not counting Asiatic Russia), I believe, by Spain) so I guess that the inscription is at very least “due reward” for playing the bureaucratic game well!