The proper management of the Greece’s forests will not only ensure protection of the environment but can also be an important lever for the country’s exit from the crisis, Alternate Environment Minister Yiannis Tsironis told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA) on Thursday, after the first reading of a draft bill on forestry cooperatives in Parliament.
The draft bill was warmly met by nearly all the parties, with most speakers considering that it is moving in the right direction.
“Reform of forestry cooperatives is extremely important since our country presently generates less than 0.5 pct of its GDP from over half of its territory, which are the forests and forest land; this fact is a key cause of underdevelopment,” Tsironis said.
He noted that over half of forests were excluded from economic activity at present, which effectively meant that that they were abandoned.
“People leave, schools shut down, infrastructure, networks are not maintained and there are no people to use and protect the forests,” he said, noting that the Greek state’s revenues from forestry in 2014 and 2015 came to just nine million euros.
He explained that there were a number of ways to generate income from forests and encourage people to return, including the collection of low-quality or dead woods that might be used as fuels, harvesting and marketing high-value goods produced by forests, such as truffles, or through selective, sustainable logging of high-quality timber, livestock breeding, dairy farming and tourism.
The minister contrasted Greece’s case with that of Latvia, which he said generated 2 pct of its GDP from forest management with only have the forest cover of Greece.
Debate on the draft bill will continue next Tuesday and it is expected to become law in roughly two weeks.
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