ATHENS (AFP) – Two weeks of sweltering heat and wildfires have confirmed fears that Greece’s ecosystem is under increasing risk, experts say.
Some 50,000 hectares of forest and vegetation have been left scorched, according to estimates by the National Observatory of Athens.
This makes the month of July the worst in 13 years in terms of burned land, said a Research Director at the observatory Charalampos Kontoes.
“It was a dry winter, and spring rains were not enough to maintain” moisture in the soil, Kontoes told AFP.
Civil protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias this week said crews had battled more than 660 blazes this month, an average of 50 to 70 fires a day.
Businesses and farms on the tourist islands of Corfu and Rhodes, Greece’s second-largest island of Evia and the countryside near Volos, central Greece, bore the brunt of the damage this year.
The Greek state association insuring farmers, ELGA, estimates that 50,000 olive trees and 2,500 animals and beehives have been destroyed on Rhodes.
In the Volos area, the organisation said it had found “significant losses” in harvested grain and grapes, in addition to farm machinery and buildings.
Major losses in livestock have also hit, it added.
