Ecoblogi – A Blog by Daniel Elkama

I was just now in August on a trip to Ayia Napa, on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea. I compensated all the carbon emissions caused by air travel. Here are my thoughts from the trip.

The Mediterranean has been described as the ring of fire of the Mediterranean, every spring and summer there are huge forest and wildfires in the area. Earlier in the spring I was working to help refugees in Athens during Easter and at that time on the train trip to the village where the refugee camp is, we saw huge forest fires in the mountains right next to the train track. Climate change has escalated to a new extremely serious level. About a tenth of the forests on the island of Rhodes burned at once the other year. Australia and California also have more destructive forest fires year after year. All of these are biodiversity hot spots. Often in rugged landscape there are wonderful plants and animals. On remote islands there is often unique nature.

There were no forest or wildfires in Cyprus, and life and nature seemed peaceful. No water shortage or severe drought. By nature, the island has an arid, dry climate, where it rains mostly in winter, when the island is much greener. The island is only a couple of hundred kilometers to the Sahara desert and to Lebanon and Syria. The island’s nature, plants and animals have adapted to drought and scarce water resources due to evolution. It is natural here that the air temperature is over 35 degrees Celsius, as it was 30-35 degrees Celsius on the way at the hottest time of the day. However, climate change has increasingly caused several heat waves of more than 40 degrees in recent summers. Sometimes temperatures up to 45 degrees. This is often dangerous for old people, children and the sick. The most effective way for people to protect themselves from the heat is to stay in the shade, drink plenty of water, use air conditioners and especially trees in populated areas. By shading and evaporating water, trees can cool the air temperature by up to 12 degrees and the ground temperature by more than 20 degrees. Adapting to climate change is extremely important now, because we can no longer prevent many problems caused by a changed climate, but we have to adapt to a changed climate. Climate change is here and today. The worst problems it causes in the Mediterranean are forest and wildfires, drought, water shortages, heat waves and desertification.

A tourist can also be ecological. You can compensate for emissions, use little and clean energy, move as emission-free as possible, save water, etc. The most beautiful place in Ayia Napa was Cape Greko National Park, which was on the cape right next to the tourist destination of Ayia Napa. Cape Greko had a wonderful landscape formed by erosion: the cliffs were steep, some were rifts and arches, such as the wonderful Crow’s Arc. There were also particularly nice caves on the rocks by the sea. At the tip of the cape was the wonderful Blue Lagoon, whose water is deep blue.

We first hiked through the national park and later came to see the scenery on a boat safari. We got to see rare fish and sea turtles on a boat trip. There are also differences in height, hard-to-find rocks and those, and you have to prepare for the scorching heat with good shoes and a sufficient amount of water and something sugary to drink. There are also nice viewpoints and a pine forest. A large part of the area is downright desert-like with thorn bushes. Naturally desert-like. Cape Greco shows how valuable nature can be right next to a busy tourist destination. There are already signs on the beaches of Ayia Napa telling about endangered plant species. Man and nature can live side by side when man restores nature and takes it into account in his activities.