Union to help replant burnt areas

RIGHT-WING union Sek yesterday offered to help replant areas devastated by the recent forest fires, in an initiative welcomed by Agriculture Minister Costas Themistocleous.

Representatives of the union met the minister yesterday morning and presented him with a letter pledging their support.

"We feel obliged to help the government to restore the destroyed places, and plant trees to make the environment better for people," Sek secretary-general Demetris Kettenis told the Cyprus Mail.

The executive committee of the 65,000-member union, made the decision to offer its assistance in an effort to widen environmental awareness. "It is an objective of trade unions to improve the quality of life of people, not just by increasing wages, but in other ways," Kettenis added.

The Forestry Department, which comes under the jurisdiction of the Agriculture Ministry, will draw up specific programmes that will use Sek labour when the replanting season begins in winter.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.