HUNDREDS of olive and carob tress, and even a grade 1 archeological site, have been systematically destroyed to make way for a highway into the Karpas district, environmentalists in the north claimed yesterday.
The worst environmental degradation is taking place around the Akanthou district, olive tree specialist Cahit Basaran told the Cyprus Mail yesterday. He added that the destruction had been “going on for months”, despite numerous warnings from environmental groups to the ‘ministry’ responsible for the road building project.
Another olive tree campaigner, Cenk Soykut, said trees, which had been bought by the administration for replanting, were simply being left on the roadsides to die because the authorities had failed to collect them.
“Because the trees were bought by the government, villagers are not picking them up for replanting. In this way the trees are being left to die.” Soykut also drew attention to damage that had been inflicted on the fifth century Byzantine Panayia Pergamiotissa Church in the area.
The Turkish Cypriot authorities, the environmentalists say, cannot claim ignorance over what prominent Turkish Cypriot archeologist Muge Sevketoglu describes as an “environmental and historical massacre”.
Seketoglu, who has been involved in excavations in the area for over a decade, said that when she contacted the ‘environment and natural resources ministry’ and ‘antiquities department’, both offices had already been alerted to the destruction taking place.
However, it was only days ago that officials arrived on the scene and began proceedings aimed at bringing a temporarily halt construction work.
“At the moment,” Sevketoglu said, “the road goes on and we follow its progress picking up cut down trees and broken pottery”.
The archeologist says the root of the problem lies in a lack of co-ordination between different ‘government’ departments and the road building company. This shortcoming was spelled out in comments by the ‘environmental office’, which accused the company of not obtaining the necessary permits to build the road. The company, meanwhile, says it obtained permission from the ‘forestry department’.
But tree specialist Basaran claims it is the ‘agricultural ministry’ that is responsible for handing permission to cut or prune fruit tress such as olive and carob. “The agriculture minister should resign because he didn’t even know he was responsible,” Basaran said.
But ultimately Basaran believes it is the responsibility of the ‘communication and works minister’ Salih Usar to protect trees and archeological remains.
“You can’t blame the road builder,” Basaran said. “It’s not their job to replant trees.”
Meanwhile, confusion was added by the road building company’s manager Levent Eray who told a newspaper in the north that no work had been done at the site for the past 20 days. He also claimed to have no knowledge of any tree felling in the area.
Despite alleged calls by the authorities to halt construction, and accusations that “irreparable damage” has been done to a slab of rock once used as a focus for worship, others in the area claim work is going on unabated. However, a spokesman for the ‘communications and works ministry’ said work had ceased “the minute the road builders encroached onto the archeological site”.
