Greens plead for Paphos trees

GREENS yesterday called on the government to grant a reprieve to pine trees facing the chop in the Paphos forest area.

The Paphos branch of the Ecological Movement group also called on the Forestry Department to re-align its felling policy to put trees rather than lumberjacks first.

In an announcement yesterday, the group said it had been swamped by phone- calls from concerned members of the public worried about the impending “slaughter” of hundreds of pines in the Symbouli area of Paphos. An on-the- spot investigation had revealed that hundreds of pine trees had been marked for the axe, the movement said.

The Forestry Department were more concerned with keeping the saw-mills of the state forestry industries supplied with timber than they were for the long-term survival and health of native forests, the environmentalist charged.

It was time for this to change, the pressure group demanded.

“Everyone’s first concern should be for the preservation of the natural environment at any cost,” the greens stated.

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