Destruction of the Coast in Baošići: the Government Changed, but Investors’ Habits Didn’t — Parallels with 2008 Lipci

In 2008, during the construction of the Risan–Žabljak road, the company “Tani” of Nikšić businessman Ranko Radulović filled about 5,000 square meters of sea in Lipci, in the Bay of Kotor, with construction material. The destruction was stopped under pressure from residents, environmental activists and NGOs MANS and Ekspedicija, while Radulović was arrested a few months later for illegal occupation of property.

Eighteen years later, just a few kilometers away, the same scene is repeating in Baošići, in the Bay of Kotor, in the municipality of Herceg Novi — where investors are reshaping the coast.

Dejan Milovac of MANS stresses the parallel between the two cases, but also notes the essential difference: Radulović had no permit for his intervention, while in Baošići the state played an active role in the process.

“Even after 2020, which we mark as a turning point, it became clear that investors who once destroyed the coast could continue the same activity even under the new administration,” says Milovac. He doesn’t exclude suspicions of corruption: nobody in local or state power, according to him, does these “favors” to investors — including Mr. Popović — for free, and the prosecution has sufficient basis to investigate this relationship.

Milovac also recalls the case of Marko Bratu Carević, who for more than 10 years has illegally occupied over half a million square meters of state land, without any reaction from the state.

The final message, according to him, is simple: saving the Montenegrin coast is not difficult — equal enforcement of the law for everyone prevents future destructions. “Precisely because Lipci was never returned to its previous state, Baošići happened,” Milovac stresses.

Source: RTCG