GREENS were yesterday cautiously optimistic over the cabinet’s decision on Wednesday to protect specific areas of the environmentally sensitive Akamas peninsula from development.
George Perdikis, chairman of the green party, said it was too early to make an official statement since the various environmental groups affiliated to the party have not yet had a chance to sit down and examine the decision in detail.
“It’s an old story and many environmental groups are involved,” Perdikis said, adding that the decision involved a lot of complex issues.
“What we want to see is whether there is a map which will show exactly which areas are for development and which are protected,” he said. “There are so many gaps which are a mystery to us.”
The cabinet on Wednesday voted to protect three specific areas in the Akamas — Lara, Toxeftra and Fontana Amorosa — but said it would allow “mild and controlled” development in other parts of the peninsula.
The decision follows through and expands on earlier cabinet decisions to allow ‘mild and controlled’ development in the region, which ministers approved in 2000.
Private landowners, particularly big businessmen such as the Bishop of Paphos and Carlsberg magnate Photos Photiades, are among those who own property in the designated areas and have been pushing for development.
The government said it would exchange forest land that they own with state land in a different area or compensate owners in cash.
A spokesperson for Photiades told he Cyprus Mail yesterday that the businessman was not ready to comment just yet.
“We want to know what the exchanges will be,'”Perdikis said. “There will be some kind of development, but what kind?”
“If they dropped plans to develop Fontana Amorosa where will that development be in the end?” Perdikis asked. He said the party would try to arrange a meeting with Agriculture Minister Costas Themistocleous to obtain more details.
“We have some questions but the decision is not entirely bad,” Perdikis said. “There are some good points, especially about Fontana Amorosa, but there are others which are questionable,” he added.
The cabinet decision also includes a freeze on new ‘safari’ licences to the Akamas and to review all existing licences, which involve using forest tracks. The Akamas will also be out of bounds to the Cyprus Rally and a sum of £50,000 was approved to clean up the forest areas. The government is also preparing a reforestation programme.
Residents of the remote area who have long been seeking development in the Akamas were delighted with the cabinet decision.Sophocles Pittokopitis, leader of Inia village, said yesterday the decision was a positive one for local residents who would now “be able to stay in the villages where they were born” instead of leaving the sparsely populated area to make a living.
He said the idea to consolidate the privately owned forest land into a state-owned national park had been the idea of the local communities, who he said would pledge to protect the Akamas from uncontrolled development. “We will make sure not to repeat the mistakes of what has happened in the rest of Cyprus,” Pittokopitis said. “If the government is determined to give incentives for the residents of the area we will see a development which is in true harmony with the environment.”
House Environment Committee chairman George Lillikas said the decision was a step in the right direction.
“But I can’t judge or give value to the minister’s statement because as yet we haven’t got the documentation in front of us,” he said. “Small print and little lines can make a big difference so we will wait and see.”
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.
