Sir,
Mr Antonis Loizou is entitled to his opinions on the proposed Akamas National Park (Sunday Mail, October 28), but first of all he needs to get his facts straight.
His claim that the park will cover “practically the whole of Wales” is laughable. It makes me wonder if he has ever been to Wales – or, for that matter, to the Akamas. He either has a very inflated idea of the size of Cyprus, or absolutely no concept at all of the size of Wales. The entire island of Cyprus is less than half the size of Wales, so how could a National Park covering the North West tip of the island be anywhere near “the size of Wales”? The proposed national park will cover an area of 200 square kilometers. That is just 10 kilometers wide by 20 kilometers long. Wales is more than 100 times that size – 20,470 square kilometers to be precise. Cyprus is just 9,251 square kilometres in total.
Such ignorance of basic maths and geography is worrying coming from an estate agent. I wondered if perhaps he was talking of “relative sizes” – i.e. does he mean that the Akamas National Park compared to Cyprus would be the size of Wales compared to the UK? If so, he should have made this clear, but in fact that doesn’t work out either. Wales is just over eight per cent of the area of the UK. The proposed national park will cover just over two per cent of the area of Cyprus – or less than one per cent of the area of Wales. To put this in perspective, National Park areas cover 20 per cent of the area of Wales, and eight per cent of England. They are also a great tourist attraction.
These are facts, and not open to dispute. I have no idea whether the financial figures quoted by Mr Loizou are correct, or equally misguided.
Other points made by Mr Loizou are more subjective and open to debate. He gives the example of Troodos and stating that the hotels there are struggling to make a living. This is surely an argument against building more hotels – or villas and apartments – in the Akamas! The Akamas area is just a short drive away from the hotels and apartments of Coral Bay and Ayios Georgios on the one side, and Latsi and Polis on the other. Why does anyone need a hotel in the Akamas Peninsula? People visit it precisely because it is wild, unspoiled, and very beautiful. Once the developers are allowed in it will be just like any other concrete strip in Cyprus! And there will be no reason for anyone to visit the area.
I cannot understand how the villagers of the Akamas expect to benefit from destroying the only reason why people visit their region. Perhaps in the short term they will benefit from selling their land to the developers, but the main gains will go to Mr Fotiou and the Church – neither of whom are in desperate need of more money! I wonder how the children and grandchildren of the Akamas villagers will feel about their parents and grandparents destroying their natural heritage? Perhaps they won’t care because they won’t know what they’re missing, as they sit on the veranda of their concrete box and contemplate their beautiful view of all the other concrete boxes surrounding them.
As for Mr Loizou’s other suggestions: marinas? They haven’t even started to build the proposed marina in Paphos yet! A sea-park with a sunken warship and a “jumbo”? A jumbo what? 747? Elephant? Why would you want to sink either? The mind boggles… Beach areas and restaurants? Cyprus already has plenty of these.
I do not think the Anassa hotel has saved any of the Akamas villages from economic destruction. How many of the villagers are employed by the hotel? How many of the hotel’s guests visit the Akamas villages and spend money there?
Mr Loizou is behind the times. Tourists these days want more than sun, sea, sand and a concrete hotel to stay in, so developing the Akamas in the ways he proposes makes neither ecological nor financial sense. It will destroy many rare flora species endemic to the region, as well as the turtle nesting sites, and bird habitats. These are the very things that attract tourists to the area. Why would anyone go to the remote Akamas region for what they can find anywhere else on the island – or (much cheaper) in other tourist destinations?
Allowing moderate development within, or close to, the existing village boundaries (for example small guest houses and tavernas, craft shops, an environmental centre, a bicycle hire shop, organised walking tours etc.) and encouraging cyclists, ramblers, bird-watchers, plant and nature-lovers to visit the Peninsula will preserve an area of outstanding natural beauty and at the same time bring far more long-term financial benefits to the villagers than destroying the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Wendy Hughes
Marathounda, Paphos
