Taking care of forests and bringing the individuals again – finish the scourge of mega-fires

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Introduction

Trying on the map of the depopulation in inland areas of the Mediterranean, one can see that it overlaps to a big extent with the map of forest fires recorded by satellites. That is nothing new for researchers engaged on fires and local weather change: the connection between the 2 phenomena is well-known. But it could not be right to attribute causality with out contemplating different elements. To know the connection between fires and rural exodus, we went to the websites of essentially the most devastating fires of summer time 2021 in Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus.

Scorched earth. Half one: Italy and Greece

Half 2. Cyprus and Spain: forgotten landscapes

Curbing depopulation and caring for forests has each an environmental and a social worth. Most of the funds allotted by the European Union for this goal should not used, and their actual impression is just not measured. In the meantime, the fires of summer time 2021 in Cyprus and Spain confirmed a common pattern throughout Mediterranean Europe.

Within the village of Arakapas on the island of Cyprus, the variety of inhabitants has dropped from 500 to 160 in 30 years, and most of those individuals at the moment are retired. Right here, final summer time noticed Cyprus’s largest hearth in ten years, with 4500 hectares devastated.

Just like the Montiferru space in Sardinia, the island of Evia in Greece, and plenty of different elements of the Mediterranean, the inland areas of Cyprus have additionally expertise…