STA, 2 August 2019 - Environment Minister Simon Zajc called for coexistence between people and wolves as he visited on Friday the Cerkljansko region, where wolf attacks on livestock have become increasingly frequent. He pointed to measures that protect humans and their property from wolves.

Two attacks occurred at the same time last Sunday, which means that two packs of wolves are currently in the region.

Hunting officials have been given the green light to cull one wolf and the minister hopes that this reduction will deter any other wolves from visiting villages and attacking.

"Our task is to enable coexistence. Coexistence means that people do not live in fear, that there are possibilities for development and that we have sufficient wolf population," the minister said.

A number of measures are necessary to meet these targets, including subsidised school transport, fencing and culling, he added.

The minister noted that there had been a spike in wolf attacks on farm animals. The increase is, according to him, a result of not carrying out Administrative Court orders on culling in the past.

Wolf is a territorial animal, which moves on when the space gets scarce. The presence of wolves in the region has been proven and the population has been expanding, he said.

The authorities have expanded their monitoring area and the Environment Ministry is working on solutions in cooperation with the Agriculture Ministry.

The minister expressed confidence that experts would set an appropriate figure for culling.

During today's visit, the minister met local mayors and civil initiative representatives as well as farmers who have been affected by the attacks.

The founder of an initiative for the removal of dangerous wild animals, Ivan Mavri, said after the meeting that the organisation demanded measures that would restore a sense of security in the region, but conceded that this would not happen overnight.

According to Mavri, the locals want this area to be completely wolf-free.

Marko Gasser, one of the people who have suffered most damage during the attacks, said that a number of locals had submitted a request to the ministry to define the areas where wolves would be allowed to hunt, excluding the Gorenjska and north Primorska regions.

According to Zajc, there are currently between 88 and 100 wolves in Slovenia.

Under the law on extraordinary culling of bears and wolves, which entered into force at the end of June, a total of 62 bears have been culled so far, and no wolves, according to the national Forest Service.

The law permits the culling of 175 bears and 11 wolves, which is more than 10% of the population of both animals in Slovenia, with the service estimating the bear population at around 1,000 and the wolf population at 100.

The most of the damage is being done by wolves, which this year attacked more than 500 domestic animals, more than double compared to the same period last year.

The Forest Service dealt with a total of 406 cases of damage done by wolves this year, with the total amount being estimated at EUR 312,000.

STA, 30 July 2019 - A plastic-free grocery shop, Rifuzl opened in the heart of Ljubljana's Šiška borough six months ago allowing customers to shop sustainably for local products and contribute to keeping the planet cleaner.

Rifuzl gets about 50 to 70 customers a day, and about the same number of curious passers-by, who come to check out the store first and return to shop later, say the founders, Primož Cigler and Manca Behrič.

"Most of our customers are young families, young mothers who only want the best for their children and want to contribute to keeping the nature intact for future generations," Cigler told the STA.

Their clients come to Rifuzl to shop from other parts of Slovenia. To save those customers a drive to Ljubljana they also plan on launching a delivery service.

"We are certainly not regretting to have taken this path. It's hard and there were moments that made us lose motivation. But happy returning customers make everything worthwhile," said Cigler.

Besides the more remote customers, the plastic-free shop has a number of local customers, who like the location and the products it offers.

"Šiška is quite densely populated and the area around Kino Šiška is fairly busy with enough parking space," said Cigler about the location's advantages.

"Most clients that have learned to shop without plastic packaging return very often. Some say they don't go to regular stores any more, because they can buy everything they need in our shop," he added.

Rifuzl sells more than 500 products, most of them food, such as rice, legumes, oatmeal, flours and pasta, along with preserves, eggs, sweets, dairy products, drinks and honey, and supplies for zero-waste life, such as glass jars, cotton bags and wooden cutlery, as well as cleaning and cosmetic products.

They get most products from local suppliers, which are the easiest to convince to supply plastic-free products. The ever-changing list of products is promptly updated and posted on their website, www.rifuzl.si, which also includes the company's presentation and manifesto, and the store can be found at Celovška cesta 111, 1000 Ljubljana.

Related: Meet the People - Neja Maruša Medved, Vegan and Zero Waste Blogger

The UK’s Ascent Resources, often in the news in Slovenia for its long-running and so far less than successful attempts to exploit it’s Petišovci gas field with the use of hydraulic stimulation, has announced a series of cost-cutting measures and managerial changes. As reported by Morning Star, the moves are an attempt to cut costs by 50%, and are needed because of the delays to the Slovenian project. As the website notes:

In its Slovenian operations, Ascent said it will cut the number of its employees and halt "all non-essential expenditure", including its May order of compression equipment for the Pg-10 and Pg-11A wells.

The company is also changing its CEO, with Chief Operating Officer John Buggenhagen replacing Colin Hutchinson, who will stay with company on a part-time, interim basis as a finance director.

Also leaving the company's board is Cameron Davies, retiring as chair having been a company director since 2010.

The new CEO, a geophysicist who has been working in various capacities at Ascent since January of this year, said: “we continue to pursue an appeal against the Environment Ministry in Slovenia, in conjunction with our joint venture partner at Petišovci, and we are prepared to initiate legal action against the Republic of Slovenia, who we believe is in breach of European Union law.”

Shares in the company were down 12% at 0.26 pence each in London at the close of trading, Monday.

The full report can be seen here, while all our reporting on Ascent Resources is here.

STA, 17 July 2019 - Ascent Resources, the UK developer of the Petišovci gas field in eastern Slovenia, has reportedly launched administrative dispute proceedings in Slovenia after it was ordered to get a separate permit for hydraulic fracturing.

The move, reported on Tuesday by the Stock Market Wire news portal, comes after the Environment Ministry upheld a decision of the Environment Agency (ARSO) on the controversial gas extraction project in Petišovci.

The ministry agreed that an environmental impact assessment and a separate environmental permit were necessary because the location of the gas wells was close to water sources and because underground waters and agricultural land in the area do not have very good ability to regenerate.

"The decision of ARSO and the Environment Ministry ignores the opinion of the six independent expert bodies whose advice ARSO sought," Ascent said.

The decision mistakenly concluded that the project fell within a conservation area and misapplied EU case law in relation to mitigation measures, Ascent also said as it announced multi-pronged legal action against Slovenia on 14 July, a day before the deadline for the Administrative Court appeal.

Aside from challenging the decision at the Administrative Court, Ascent plans to submit a claim for damages against the state for breach of EU law including for the unreasonably long time it took for the decision to be reached.

The company will seek damages for loss of future income from the project "which would have been expected to have been a multiple of the historic investment of some EUR 50 million."

It also plans to lodge an investment treaty arbitration claim under the Energy Charter Treaty.

All our stories on Ascent Resources are here

STA, 9 July 2019 - Slovenia was placed 12th in this year's report on meeting the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development targets among 162 countries. The country is particularly successful at eliminating extreme forms of poverty and providing access to greener energy sources.

The report was published at the end of June by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network association, under the auspices of the UN, and Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation. The organisations pointed out that this year's results were not comparable to the ones from last year due to a different methodology, with Slovenia ranking 8th in 2018.

According to the government's Office for Development and European Cohesion Policy, Slovenia's biggest challenges are implementing measures aimed at eliminating undernourishment, providing for sustainable production and consumerism, mitigating climate change and preserving sea and marine resources.

The results show that four years after setting the targets and three years after signing the Paris Agreement, no country has yet fulfilled all the goals and many areas among 17 global targets have seen a regress.

The report highlights that some countries are inconsistent at implementing relevant measures, particularly the richest ones, which were found to have a negative impact on the progress of less developed ones.

It also warns about a surge in corruption and downward spiral of reducing media freedom, which have been present in some middle-income and high-income countries as well.

The full report can be found here, while the part focusing on Slovenia is here

STA, 5 July 2019 - The city councils of all four coastal municipalities have urged authorities to present them within a month a timeline of activities to find a new, safe water source for Slovenian Istria.

Koper, Piran, Izola and Ankaran councillors met on Friday after almost 11,000 litres of kerosene spilled as a train derailed in a tunnel on the Koper-bound railway near Hrastovlje, south-west.

The spill is a threat to the Rižana water source, the only source of drinking water for Slovenia's coast. The greatest threat is heavy rain, which could make kerosene penetrate further into the soil and underground water.

The councillors are worried the state cannot guarantee the coast the constitutionally guaranteed right to drinking water if the Rižana source is contaminated.

They thus demand that all the necessary measures are taken and implemented to prevent the pollution of the only water source for Slovenian Istria.

Supervision of the state in which railway and road infrastructure is in water areas, should be enhanced, the councillors decided.

The railway infrastructure in water areas should be maintained and modernised to avoid any problems with the rail tracks.

The authorities should also make sure that trains carrying dangerous cargo in water areas run at adequate speeds.

Finally, the state should take measures to minimise risks for similar incidents.

If these measures cannot be guaranteed, then the option should be studied to ban transport of dangerous substances through water areas until a new water source is found.

The councillors also tasked the mayors to prioritise efforts to find a new water source and expressed support for the state's efforts to build the second rail track between Koper and Divača.

The session, which Koper Mayor Aleš Bržan labelled "Istrian parliament", was also attended by government representatives.

Environment and Spatial Planning Minister Somin Zajc promised serious efforts would be made to find a new water source, announcing a meeting with Istrian mayors at the ministry's water directorate for next week.

Several possible water sources have been proposed in the past, so it is clear which ones could be suitable, but they will have to be studied again, he said.

While he could not give any detailed timeline, he said "we're probably not talking weeks or months, but a year or two".

To further protect the Rižana water source from kerosene pollution, a special protective foil was laid in the Hrastovlje tunnel on Wednesday after much of the contaminated material was removed earlier.

All our stories on water quality in Slovenia are here

STA, 2 July 2019 - The share of electricity from renewable sources in gross end use in Slovenia in 2018 rose by 3.4 percentage points to 21.8% from 2005, the Energy Agency, the national regulator, says in its 2018 report.

This was facilitated by a support scheme which has since 2009 involved more than 2,500 producers with almost 3,860 production facilities running on renewables.

But in line with national goals stemming from the EU's climate and energy package, the share of renewables in gross end use will have to be raised to 25% by 2020.

To achieve this goal, progress will have to be made in transport and in power production, the agency says in the report, which has been sent to the National Assembly.

In transport, Slovenia was by 4.7 percentage points behind the target 10.5% share in 2018, while the gap for electricity output to the 39.3% goal was over 7 points.

Renewables-based power was generated mostly by hydro plants and other plants running on renewables, reaching 34.5% of the country's total power output in 2018, up almost 5 points annually.

The rest of Slovenia's power output came from coal-fired power stations (29%) and the Krško Nuclear Power Plant, the country's only nuclear power station (36.5%).

Domestic electricity production covered almost 85% of domestic electricity consumption, up 1.7 points from 2017.

However, the agency said the output did not reflect the actual potential of the country's electricity production facilities.

It was rather a result of the structure of production facilities, their competitiveness and the emerging electricity market target model, says the report.

For instance, hydro power stations' output depends on water levels, while coal-fired power stations and plants running on liquid and gas fuels strongly depend on daily power consumption as well as on market variables such as the prices of emission coupons, fuel or wholesale.

The agency also says market concentration in the retail market somewhat decreased last year, which shows there is more competition among electricity suppliers.

However, the end price of electricity for an average household edged up 0.3%, while it rose by more than 8% for other users.

While there is still much room to save on electricity bills by changing suppliers, the number of those did so in 2018 dropped by one point to 5.7% over 2017, a second consecutive annual drop.

The Energy Agency is the country's national regulatory authority which directs and supervises electricity and gas energy operators.

Its mission is to act in the interest of all market stakeholders, so it is not financed from the state budget but from network charges.

STA, 27 June 2019 - Environment Minister Simon Zajc visited on Thursday the location of the kerosene leak caused by a derailed freight train near Hrastovlje in SW Slovenia, saying that after the last damaged wagon had been removed from the tunnel, works on removing the polluted soil would start Thursday night. Rail traffic on the section is expected to resume on Friday.

Speaking to the press after a meeting with stakeholders, Zajc said that everything had been arranged with the national railways operator Slovenske Železnice regarding the rehabilitation of the area hit by the spill.

The removal of the pollutes soil will start tonight, with representatives of the Environment Agency and the Environment Inspectorate being present to make sure that the soil is treated in accordance with law, he added.

Asked when railway traffic on the section is to be resumed, Zajc said that "we will speak about traffic once the threat of kerosene getting into the groundwater is minimised."

According to Slovenske Železnice director general Dušan Mes, rail traffic is expected to be resumed on Friday, but he could not tell when exactly. He added that the cargo accumulated in the port of Koper equalled some 200 to 250 trains, which would have to be compensated for in July.

Threat to water remains, further measures needed

The meeting was held at the Koper seat of the regional water system operator, Rižanski Vodovod, as there are concerns that the leak might have contaminated the local river Rižana, which supplies the system.

Zajc announced that the ministry would provide full support for Rižanski Vodovod in terms of monitoring of water and further measures, especially if the kerosene reached the groundwater.

The minister talked in Luxembourg yesterday with his Croatian counterpart, who expressed his country's readiness to help the Slovenian coast needed additional water from the sources from the Croatian part of the Istria peninsula.

Rižanski Vodovod director Martin Pregelj reiterated that the situation was under control, while warning that the threat of the kerosene entering the groundwater remained. The operator is regularly monitoring the quality of water and taking samples, he added.

Zajc added that a permanent solution for an additional water source for the Slovenian coast needed to be found, adding that "this event was a clear signal." He intends to call a meeting with all mayors from the area to agree on how to find a solution.

The work on removing the derailed wagons from the tunnel is meanwhile going as planned. Dragan Puzić of the Koper Fire Brigade told the STA that only two out of the six wagons remained to be removed from the Hrastovlje tunnel.

STA, 26 June 2019 - The only water supply system for the entire Slovenian coast may be in jeopardy after a kerosene-carrying train derailed Tuesday afternoon near one of the potable water sources. Measures have been taken to prevent the worst, but there is no doubt that the kerosene will reach the groundwater with the first strong rainfall at the latest.

The regional water system operator, Rižanski vodovod, supplies more than 87,000 residents, but the figure grows much higher during the summer season, to about 130,000 people.

Slovenia is bracing for a heatwave expected to peak in the second half of the week and the coast is a popular destination for many seeking to respite from scorching temperatures.

Following an emergency meeting this morning, called in the wake of the spill, Rižanski Vodovod urged its clients to conserve water.

The porous Kras terrain is notoriously tricky when it comes to water flow and Nataša Viršek Ravbar of the Karst Research Institute of the Research Centre of the Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) told the STA that it is only a matter of time before the oil reaches the nearest water source.

Once a pollutant is in the Karstic ground, there is nothing anybody can do, she said. As fas as she knows, the tunnel where the accident happened does not have built-in oil catchers.

Currently, efforts are under way to pump out the spilled kerosene from the tunnel near the village of Hrastovlje. It is estimated that some 10,000 litres of the fuel spilled as several wagons derailed last afternoon.

Viršek Ravbar believes that the only way to ensure quality of water is constant monitoring. The oil will likely reach the water source during the next rainfall and may remain polluted for a long time.

Rižanski Vodovod said that direct sourcing had been suspended from the jeopardised point of intake at the source of the River Rižana and that the source was being monitored.

Stressing that people's health is the most important thing, the company, owned by the four municipalities it services, also increased the intake of water from other, safe sources and scaled up pumping from the deepest water sources.

The water supplier also expressed belief that thorough clean-up works would take priority over haste to relaunch traffic. The accident halted not only passenger transport but also cargo transport to and from the port of Koper, the country's only seaport.

Environment Minister Simon Zajc, who is abroad today, is to visit the site tomorrow.

STA, 17 June 2019 - Prime Minister Marjan Šarec agreed with an opposition MP during questions time in parliament on Monday that Slovenia should not allow small environmental groups halt developmentally and environmentally important projects. He proposes that the Environment Ministry draw up legislation to prevent this.

"Protecting the environment is important, but stopping every project will also not get us far," the prime minister told MPs, adding that Slovenia would have to decide where it would obtain energy from.

Šarec was responding to a question by Dušan Šiško of the opposition National Party (SNS) on the latest in a series of projects that faced opposition from environmental groups.

After the government aborted plans to build hydro power stations on the river Mura in the north-east at the end of May, the latest project stopped by environmentalists is the construction of the Mokrice plant in the south-eastern part of the Sava river.

The Austrian-Canadian automotive multinational Magna Steyr also faced strong opposition from environmentalists before it could build a paint shop in Hoče, north-east.

Referring to the Mokrice case, in which a small, six-member NGO, the Society for Fish Watching, managed to halt the EUR 200 million project by launching an appeal at the Administrative Court, Šiško asked the PM how long will environmental and other groups be able to obstruct investments of national importance.

"We are letting small groups for reasons that are not clear halt developmentally and environmentally important projects under the pretence of environmental protection.

"The state has clearly made a mistake by allowing every group which has a status of a public interest group to take part in procedures and actually work against public interest," Šiško said.

Šarec noted the government had moved to protect Mura, as promised, and would protect a lot more, but "that's not enough for some". "Every day I get mail from different initiatives to stop this and that construction, close TEŠ 6 and Krško. I agree this is not the way to go about things," he said.

Šarec thinks the Environment Ministry should prepare legislation that would specify which organisations serve the public interest to introduce some restrictions as to who can act as a stakeholder.

He said common sense should be used when addressing environmental issues. "Even the fiercest environmentalists use mobile phones, cars and other modern technology. All these use electricity in a direct or indirect way," he said.

"We're always moving from one extreme to the other. We used to not care about the environment at all, and now we want to protect it so much that we are causing damage to ourselves," he said.

Wind power plants are widespread everywhere around the world, only in Slovenia "birds and butterflies apparently don't know how to fly pass them", Šarec illustrated.