I've done a little bit of research and seen the range is split into three sections: Western, Central and Eastern with the highest peak being Botev in the Central region.
I am more interested in areas of natural beauty and variation than I am trying to reach peaks, but if the highest peaks include this then that's fine.
The Bulgarian government has seen an interesting demographic change over the past years in that while the population has been dropping, rural to urban migration is increasing. Bulgaria's capital, Sofia actually has the same population as in 2015 even though a massive drop in overall national population has occurred.
This has lead to Bulgaria's beautiful and rural areas such as the Balkan Mountain range have been left nearly devoid of people. As part of a scheme to preserve and rejuvenate the natural wilderness in these areas, the government is voting to make the entirety of the range, shown here into a national park and nature reserve.
Species such as the Brown Bear, Grey Wolf and Eurasian Lynx can still be found in these mountains even though they are completely gone from many of their native areas in Bulgaria and worldwide. The government hopes this initiative shall lead to a boom in the population of all the rarer species in Bulgaria.
Existing structures will remain and main roads will be maintained by the government but overall the area is set to become true wilderness once more.
This brings the added advantage of tourism in an increasingly grey world.
^- ^Second ^World ^War ^tweets ^from ^1943 ^(@RealTimeWWII) ^| ^December ^9, ^2021
