Mayor: Budapest city council to earmark HUF 1.4 billion towards nature protection

Written by BT/MTI

Budapest’s municipal council is set to allocate 1.4 billion forints (EUR 3.5m) towards the preservation of nature conservation areas after being awarded funding from a European Union scheme, Gergely Karacsony, the city’s mayor, said on Monday, marking Earth Day.

The municipal assembly is set to approve the contract on the funding on Wednesday, Karacsony told a press conference.

In recent years, Budapest’s leadership has tried to make up for the city’s “decades of shortcomings” in the protection of nature conservation areas, he said, pointing out that his administration had established 212 hectares of nature conservation areas.

He said the municipal council had never spent as much on nature protection as it now had the chance to, noting that Budapest was the first major city to have been awarded a significant amount of funding for this purpose from the EU’s LIFE Programme.