ATHENS, August 6(ABC): Days after one of Greece’s top national parks narrowly escaped massive destruction from a massive fire that raged for over a week, the country’s environment ministry congratulated itself. Among Greece’s underfunded and understaffed habitats, the Dadia national park is — on paper — one of Greece’s best protected areas as one of Europe’s most important breeding grounds for vultures and other birds of prey.
“Respect and protection of the environment was and remains a fundamental pledge of our government,” environment minister Costas Skrekas said in a statement on Tuesday. But many Greek environmental groups differ. Spyros Psaroudas, director of the Callisto wildlife group, says there is a “chronic failure” in Greece’s nature protection, adding that the present government seeks to create a business-friendly environment at the expense of wildlife.
“There is a lack of coordination among ministries and of a clear assignment of responsibilities…all this leads to illegal activities that are never punished,” adds Nadia Andreanidou, policy officer for the Mediterranean Association to Save the Sea Turtles (Medasset). “It is a vicious circle and it leads to poor management of the protected areas,” she told AFP. Forestry engineer Dimitris Vasilakis, who helped draw up Dadia’s operational plan, says the park has just four rangers to patrol 800 square kilometres (308 square miles).
The local forest service in Soufli that supervises Dadia annually receives less than 50,000 euros from the state, a fifth of what it’s supposed to, Vasilakis said. Over 300 firefighters battled for eight days last month to keep the blaze away from the Dadia nesting grounds at the heart of the park.
On Tuesday, the environment ministry said the July 21 fire had destroyed just over 2,200 hectares (54.6 acres) of forest at Dadia. Early estimates suggest predator nesting grounds were largely unaffected. The incident has put a spotlight on Greece’s long and troubled history of environmental protection. Even as the park burned two weeks ago, the government tried to push through parliament new legislation which nearly a dozen NGOs said further weakened protective restrictions in Greece’s national parks.