Sunday, July 08, 2007

Protesting for the forest

Today, the first ever large environmental protest took place in Athens. People are so fed up with the ineptitude of the state to protect the forests and the environment that they gathered outside the Parliament to protest.
On the very tomb of the Unknown Soldier, protesters left ashes and burnt branches from Parnitha, cigarette lighters and some bricks (symbolizing arson and the subsequent building of the burnt places).

Last week, Parnitha mountain's forest, the one and only national park in the vicinity of the capital, was lost due to a huge wildfire. No emergency plan was carried out, the forest is now gone and the minister in charge of the fire brigade said that the operation was "relatively successful"...
Read more about the protest

3 comments:

kangerlussuaq said...

Can't imagine how much worse would the situation be, if the operation hadn't been "relatively successful". Perhaps the minister could explain to us.

I disagree with placing ashes and bricks over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, but can't do anything else but agree with all those people who expressed their grief about the greek tragedy at Mount Parnitha. We all know that the price of this disaster will be very high in years to come.

mamasan said...

you'd be surprise how similar malaysian politicians are to greek ones... the difference is that more greeks are willing to tell their leaders off than apathetic malaysians!

Anonymous said...

The disaster in Parnitha is huge, but fortunately it wasn't everything burnt, about 40% of the forest was saved, kept for a future fire to burn it...