Greenpeace protest bases exercises

GREENPEACE yesterday said the government was to blame for the planned resumption of British army exercises in the Akamas and was guilty of failing to protect the peninsula.

In a press release responding to Tuesday’s news that the British army was to carry out live-fire exercises on the peninsula in January, the international environmental pressure group said Agriculture Minister Costas Themistocleous had promised the issue of war games within the proposed National Park area would be resolved by the end of 1998.

“Once again, promises have been broken by the Cyprus government concerning the protection of the Akamas area and its declaration as a National Park,” Irene Constantinou, of Greenpeace Cyprus stated.

Following repeated protests against the exercises by environmentalists, the government entered into talks with the British bases with the aim of agreeing an alternative site for the war games. No such site has yet been agreed.

Greenpeace said the exercises threatened the nesting beaches of endangered Green and Loggerhead turtles. The bases line is that the exercises do not have a negative environmental impact.

“No environmental assessment of the impact of the military’s training has ever been carried out,” Greenpeace stated yesterday.

“This important area must be preserved from the destructive training of the British military and any other destructive development,” Constantinou said.

Greenpeace called for the swift implementation of a government-commissioned and House approved 1996 World Bank proposal for the protection and development of the Akamas as a National Park.

“Our government must fulfil its promises and protect this area once and for all,” Constantinou said.

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.