Nevertheless, a project to build a military training polygon in a great part of its area threatens not only its biodiversity dependent of pastoralists’ way of life, but also the livelihoods of thousands of people around it, and unique landscapes that are a common European heritage. Locals vs the military polygon. 

In September 2019, midway through the process of declaring Sinjajevina a Regional Natural Park, the Montenegrin Government inaugurated an artillery polygon and began military training and weapons testing in the heart of these pastures, within the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. And this has been undertaken as blast, without any publicly available environmental impact assessment, no publicly available health evaluation, no publicly available economic impact study, nor any consistent negotiation with the affected pastoral communities. 

Construction and use of an artillery site, not only concerns local people’s traditional rights to nature from a legal point of view but also from a scientific point of view the pastoral ecosystem itself and the ecosystem services it provides depends on the safe presence and activity of the pastoral communities that is being seriously threatened by this military polygon. Also military uses would contaminate the water and harm the humans and animals that drink it. The epicenter of the military polygon is Savina Vode, the most important source of water in the highlands and water is the main limiting factor for human life and livestock. The same would be true for the plants that animals and humans consume, endangering not only those animals and humans, but also their market for meat and dairy products. Facing the facts, local communities and activists all around Montenegro and other European countries have started to join and plan actions to denounce Montenegro government's felony towards its own people.

One more greatly frustrating element for local communities, is that the first seed of this polygon has been implanted as a ‘fait accompli’ in one of the pastorally richest part of the territory, around Savina Vode, which is the most important source of water of all these highlands, which being karstic limestone based, makes water the main limiting factor for human life and livestock. Precisely because its hydrologic and pastoral strategic value, it was particularly protected and conserved by important customary rules, and all different pastoralist tribes’ members self-banned the installation of pastoral and living constructions in several kilometers around, giving only right to 15 minutes of drinking water per flock or herd and very restricted pastoral spatial limits for each group. And it has been precisely this most precious part around which the pastoralists population of 4 different Montenegrin tribes have for centuries purposely left empty but have gravitated around, organized and managed to conserve generation after generation an extraordinarily productive and rich landscape bioculturaly and agroeconomically, that has been chosen by the Ministry of the Defense to install with apparently no legal guarantees and a worrying lack of transparency a military polygon where they might have believed it to be a deserted ‘no man’s land’, due to a critically uninformed decision and a straight forward political decision to supplant the traditional users of this space, which beyond their traditional land, is also an outstanding landscape for relaxation, ecotourism development and hiking, as much as a unique reservoir of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Of course, another great fear among locals is the physical danger of being struck by military artillery (in action or explosives left behind without detonating), as well as contamination of the waters through the artillery used, and that humans and animals drink. And this impact on water could perfectly reach far beyond the site through underground water flows, specially to the villages around Lipovo just under Savina Voda lake and who have precisely a factory of water bottling due to their (up to present) reputed clean and highly healthy mineral waters. And the same goes for the plants animals eat and humans consume, endangering not only animal and human health, but their market as demand of meat and dairy products will undoubtedly shoot down and seems already to have started a slight downhill, while Sinjajevina produces one of the most valuable cheeses and milk products in the country, as for example traditional skorup cheeses sold at 25€ the kilo, an authentic fortune in a country where the mean salary is 300€ per month.

Today neither these pastoralists, nor any civil society organization from the seven affected municipalities has a good idea of the exact perimeter of the military polygon, its purpose, the nature of its risks, or the population it will directly affect. All that is known publicly is that it has been described as a polygon of more than 10.000 hectares, 100 km2, which means something like the whole city of Barcelona for example. And even though, the military polygon was solemnly inaugurated on 27th September of this year (2019), with military shooting operations in collaboration with other NATO military forces (USA, Austria, Italy, Slovenia..) undertaken even before the shepherds and their animals had begun their descent from the mountains to their winter farms in the lower valleys, causing already several animal losses.

And this polygon has been established while these are lands that have historical records under community governance and pastoral use all the way back to the XIXth century, with demonstrable continued and uninterrupted use for at least the last 140 years. Nevertheless, historians and archeologists believe this date should be pushed back much further, quite possibly to several millennia. Further research is needed, but at this stage we can already clearly recommend that the military polygon plan be submitted to an in-depth and independent social and environmental impact study, as well as a legal review of the procedures that have been followed at national and international level as Montenegro is signatory to numerous inter-states’ agreements.