MOSCOW, June 22 (RAPSI) – Russia’s Presidential Human Rights Council has urged the State Duma to reject a bill envisaging that the status of land plots in national parks could be changed. The rights activists believe if approved the document in its present version will bring destruction of special protection national territories, according to the advisory body's press service.

The Council paid special attention to the allegedly most threatened parks citing those in Moscow, Komi Republic, Samara region and some others, among them those protected by international conventions.

The bill in question envisages that the government is to be empowered to change borders of national parks; it allows altering the status of any plot of land in their territories so it could be used for business purposes.

Since recently, massive efforts aimed to weaken legal protection of national parks and change the status of pieces of their territories so they could be used for business purposes have been being registered , the member of Russia’s Presidential Human Rights Council Sergey Tsyplenkov says, alleging that the new bill has been submitted to pave way for commercial projects in national parks.

The civic society is seriously concerned with attempts to take lands of national parks, according to Tsyplenkov. Thus, more than 150,000 people have signed an appeal to the President demanding to withdraw plans to use the lands of a national park in the Komi Republic for extraction of mineral resources; the Presidential Administration confirmed that the use of the land for these purposes was against the legislation in force. In another move 220,000 signatures were collected in protest against construction of a highway across a national park in Moscow.

The Council believes the bill, if approved, is to result in violation of ecological rights of citizens.

Chair of the Council Valery Fadeyev has urged Chair of the lower house of Russia’s Parliament Vyacheslav Volodin to exclude the provisions concerning land taking in national parks from the document.