Lekkas on Kythira: The new fire is a huge blow, the island is rapidly becoming deserted

In the area where the fire had burned in 2017 - «The forest that was burned and which had tendencies of recovery will hardly be able to be saved»

Professor Efthymis Lekka's estimates for the future of Kythera are gloomy, after the new fire that has been burning the island since last Saturday (26/7). The OASP president describes the fire, which occurred in the same area where more than 100,000 acres were burnt in 2017, as a huge blow. «The forest that was burned and which had tendencies of recovery will very hardly be able to be saved anymore» he underlines.

According to Ev. Lekka, the soil resources are significantly degraded by the new forest fire, since the potential for soil erosion is increasing exponentially, so that natural flora and crops cannot grow, dragging to extinction a special environment, in which beekeeping is also developing. «Rather than feeding special areas, such as the waterfalls in the Mylopotamos, surface water is likely to create intense flooding, while at the same time the potential for run-off will be extremely limited, with significant qualitative and quantitative degradation of underground aquifers,» he notes.

«All this constitutes the rapid desertification of Kythera, i.e. the complete inability of the area to support natural processes and human activities», the President of the OASP stresses.

The estimates of Ev. Lekka

Critical Environmental Developments in Kythera

Kythera is an independent environmental unit, which is characterised by particular bio- and geo-environmental features. The extremely complex geological structure, the intense neotectonic deformation and geodynamic processes, which are due to the location of Kythera near the Greek Seismic Arc, the unique morphology of the soil, the composition of the geological formations, the soil resources and the unique flora and fauna are the dominant elements of the unique environmental specificity.

The fires that broke out in the summer of 2017 and burned more than 100.000 hectares in the central trunk of the forest of Kythera, according to research conducted immediately after the Postgraduate Programme of Studies «Strategies for Environment, Disaster and Crisis Management» of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, were decisive for the ecosystem, ground and surface water, flooding, soil temperature, while the flora and fauna, despite the enormous destruction, have shown a clear recovery in recent years due to the specific advantages mentioned.

The large forest fire, which is still ongoing, has spread to almost the same area as the 2017 fire, and is a huge blow to the existing environmental situation of Kythera. The forest that was burnt and which had been showing signs of recovery will very hardly be able to be saved any more. Soil resources are being significantly degraded by the new forest fire, as the potential for soil erosion is increasing exponentially, with the result that natural flora and crops cannot grow, dragging to extinction a special environment in which beekeeping is also developing. Rather than supplying water to specific areas, such as the waterfalls in the Mylopotamos river, surface water is likely to cause severe flooding, while at the same time the potential for downward flow will be extremely limited, with significant qualitative and quantitative degradation of underground aquifers.

All these constitute the rapid desertification of Kythera, i.e. the complete inability of the area to support natural processes and human activities.

The further environmental degradation of Kythera can only be limited through a multi-thematic programme of actions by the Central Administration and Local Authorities, the evolution of which will be continuously assessed, since human interventions in post-disastrous evolving natural-environmental processes most often do not contribute to recovery.