Greece Fears Fires Hit Rare Animals and Plants
Date: 03-Sep-07
Country: GREECE
Author: Robin Pomeroy
Animals also fled for their lives and conservationists fear
that, like the 63 human victims of the worst forest fires in
memory, many of them did not make it to safety.
Vast tracts of forest have been destroyed by the blazes,
reducing living space and hunting grounds for wildlife and
creating longer-term environmental hazards.
"We don't know what's happened to the golden jackals,
whether they died or had a chance to get away," said Dimitris
Karavellas of WWF (World Wildlife Fund) Greece.
Although not an endangered species globally, the jackals,
with their reddish-yellow fur, were a key part of the fauna in
the rugged mountains of the Peloponnese peninsula, a unique
eco-system which will take years to recover from the fires.
The chunk of southern Greece, which is effectively an island
as it is cut from the mainland by the Corinth canal, contains
some of Greece's most valued natural landscapes.
"It's not totally burned, but because space there is
restricted, for animals like foxes and rabbits, there is nowhere
for them to go," said Greenpeace's Nikos Charalambides.
With some fires still burning and the immediate priorities
restoring power and housing thousands of homeless, no one has
yet assessed the extent of the damage, but conservationists said
they feared some rare species might have been wiped out.
"A big part of Mount Taygetos has burned," Charalambides
said, referring to the Peloponnese mountain range which rises to
2,404 metres (7,887 ft) above sea level.
"It's seen as one of the jewels, one of our most important
forest areas and it has 21 endemic species of plants which are
not found anywhere else in the world."
Vast swathes of pine forest, home to birds of prey and wild
boar were also razed by the flames. That is not just bad news
for the animals who lived there, but might also pose an on-going
environmental risk.
Kalamata, a city which gave its name to the dark olives
which remain an agricultural staple of the region, could be at
risk of flooding now that the vegetation which once absorbed
rainwater in the nearby mountains has gone, said Charalambides.
The area might also suffer changes to its local
micro-climate, he said.
"The green used to cool the area and spread humidity, now
there's just a black box which will absorb heat by day and let
it out at night, making life tougher for people who live there."
For the wildlife, the one good news from the fires is that
local authorities have banned hunting in what is usually peak
season in order to spare the surviving creatures any further
carnage.
