Forests for the Future

Geographical location:

Europe/Middle-East > Southern Europe > Greece

Summary

In the summer of 2007, Greece suffered devastating forest fires which exposed the long standing weaknesses in forest protection policies and mechanisms in Greece.

In this project, WWF Greece aims to address the root causes of forest degradation and, where possible, restore the forests to their former glory. It will also put in place appropriate forest protection measures to ensure such a catastrophe is not repeated in Greece.

Background

Forest conservation has always figured prominently in WWF’s work in Greece. The extensive forest fires of 2007 exposed the long-standing weaknesses in forest protection policies and mechanisms in Greece. The fires mainly affected western and southern Peloponnese and southern Euboea. A total of 2,700 sq km of forest, olive groves and farmland were destroyed. It was the worst fire season recorded in the last 50 years.

With the impacts of climate change already being felt, it is clear that forests in the future will become both more valuable to man and nature and more vulnerable to the threat of forest fires. It is now more important than ever to address the root cause of forest degradation.

Greece’s national forest protection system is fraught with deficiencies. These include, structural and administrative problems, issues of co-ordination between different services and agencies, funding deficiencies and misallocations, and serious management deficiencies, both locally and nationally.

Land use changes have interfered with the forests’ natural ability to regenerate themselves. Greece is currently the only EU country which does not have an approved national forest maps or a cadastre), there is a serious need for the continuous monitoring of forests and associated changes in land-use, the publicizing of this information and the implementation of administrative and legal activities for countering illegal practices.

All activities planned are within the strategic planning of WWF Greece for 2008-2012. In addition, a large part of the activities foreseen in the proposal will be implemented through strategic partnerships and the mobilization of third party resources (5 academic institutions, the Athens Law Association, local NGOs).

Objectives

The project is comprised of 4 main objectives:
1. The national forest protection system
An overhaul of all aspects of forest protection in Greece to improve the collection of knowledge and information regarding fire-protection and management and its dissemination, the facilitation of the necessary co-operation between scientists, practitioners and policy makers for the endorsement of the proposed solutions, and the implementation of measures to empower the volunteer fire protection teams.

2. Forestwatch: monitoring, publicizing, intervening
Address the contributing factors of land-use changes, which poses the main threat to the rehabilitation of forest ecosystems, the project will establish a system for the evaluation of forest cover and its change over time (1987-2007), the assessment of the 2007 wildfires impact and the ad hoc documentation of illegal land-use changes after 2007. Additionally, through the creation of a public-access database for the Greek environment it will deal with the lack of availability of environmental information, as one of the driving factors for human-induced catastrophes.

3. Local rehabilitation interventions.
Assess the status and conservation needs of unburnt patches of vegetation, and their role in the natural rehabilitation process; endangered species which lost habitat in the fires, e.g. jackal, and monitoring of burnt areas of the Peloponnese. Additionally, a model to predict the post-fire regeneration of the Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis) in the Ilia prefecture, will be developed in co-operation with a Greek university.

4. Awareness and engagement of civil society.
Improve public awareness of the weakness of the current national forest protection system that causes inadequate forest conservation in Greece, and raise public willingness to participate in resolving environmental challenges. Actions include environmental education activities, dissemination of information through mass-media and cooperation with local organizations to foster good practice and respond to local challenges.

Solution

The Forests for the Future programme includes multiple approaches to a very complex issue. The project is structured in 4 axes, so that its objectives will be pursued through 4 main fields of action: fieldwork, policy work, civil society engagement and scientific support and documentation. The project aims to address the problems in all main aspects of forest conservation, in the implementation of protection measures nationally and locally and in the citizen’s level of understanding, knowledge and mobilization for forests conservation.

The ultimate vision of this project goes beyond the limits of WWF’s work, but strategic partnerships are also pursued to ensure more ambitious goals can be met.