Shrinking forests and crops, overheating cities: Greece’s ecosystem is “in danger”, experts warn, after 50,000 hectares went up in smoke in July, “the worst” July in more than a decade.
“The winter was dry and the spring rains were not enough to maintain humidity” in the roots, notes AFP Charalambos Kontoes, agricultural engineer at the Athens Observatory.
Greece has been hit by a long period of heat, strong winds and drought, “extreme climatic conditions (which) fan the fires”, notes Nikos Bokaris, the president of the Greek Union of Foresters.
The provisional assessment of the fires, especially in Attica, the Athens region, and on the tourist islands of Rhodes, Corfu or Euboea, amounts to “about 50,000 hectares burned”, deplores Charalampos Kontoes, stressing that at In this regard, it is the “worst July” in 13 years.
Thursday, the disaster near Volos (center-east), mainly affected fields and the local agricultural association.
About 660 fire starts, the vast majority quickly extinguished, were recorded in ten days, according to the Minister of Civil Protection Vassilis Kikilias.
Greece suffers forest fires every year, often deadly as in 2007 in the Peloponnese and Euboea (84 dead) or in 2018 in Mati, a seaside resort near Athens (103 dead).
Two years ago, fires, particularly in Euboea, killed three people during the summer and burned 130,000 hectares, including olive groves and pine forests producing resin. Hundreds of hives had gone up in smoke.
This year they have so far resulted in five deaths. The environmental repercussions will be assessed after their extinction, according to the Greek branch of the WWF.
But in Rhodes alone, according to provisional estimates by the Greek agricultural insurance organization ELGA, 50,000 olive trees were lost, in addition to other crops, as well as 2,500 animals and beehives.
And “the repetitive fires endanger the ecosystem, the forests are transformed into agroforestry land, the brushwood into scrubland (…) the landscape tends to change and resemble African landscapes”, fears Nikos Bokaris.
In Rhodes, where the fires broke out on July 18, “a large part of the fauna”, such as an endemic species of dama dama (European deer), “was seriously affected; some deer were found charred”, laments Grigoris Dimitriadis , the president of the local Environmental Protection Association.
The fires are also at the origin of the diffusion of polluting particles, at “record” levels in this month of July: “one megaton of carbon emissions between July 1 and 25, almost double the July record 2007”, noted the European observatory Copernicus.
About every six years, the mountains around Athens go up in flames, which “affects the ecosystem of the basin of the capital”, one of the most densely populated cities in Europe, gathering more than a third of the Greek population of 10.5 million souls, recalls Charalambos Kontoes.
For Nikos Bokaris, the situation in the Attica basin is also problematic because “there are few green spaces and the concrete constructions create a closed thermal environment”.
The Greek government, which blames the fires primarily on the climate crisis, is often accused of not doing enough to protect biodiversity and take action to prevent the fires.
“This year, prevention started a little late, but fire zones or other preventive measures are not always the panacea when the fire takes on enormous dimensions”, remarks Nikos Bokaris according to which Greece has received 55 million euros of European funds in 2022 and 86 million in 2023 to better prepare.
He recommends letting the burnt land regenerate and prohibiting the conversion of “burnt forests into areas for cultivation or construction”, as often happens.
“The climate crisis did not appear suddenly and cooperation between government, local authorities and volunteers is necessary to combat it”, judge for her part Alexandra Messare, of the Greek branch of Greenpeace.
29/07/2023 13:55:41 – Athens (AFP) – © 2023 AFP