Crete at risk of desertification - November 18, 2008

Local environmentalists in the Greek island of Crete are currently fighting a billion dollar tourism project they say will degrade the land. In the last of our series on water shortages around the Mediterranean, Nicole Itano reports from Cavo Sidero, in eastern Crete.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Aljazeera
• Al
• jazeera
• Nicole
• Itano
• Crete
• desertification
• Mediterranean
• water

[FitoSaav]

Once again, the humans fucked up the enviroment.

What else is new.

[Kritikachi]

Every square inch of Cretan soil has been blood stained over the last 2000 years. We have maintained our freedom...and are not about to give it up. Crete is not for sale. I suggest you take your mega resort elsewhere. Unless you were born Cretan, you will never understand our love for our island. KRITI MOU OMORFO NISI, OMORFO PERIVOLI, POU SE SINORIZONTE IS VASILIADES OLI.

[chris7777777777777]

Looks like a good place to build a city, if you ask me.

[annarboriter]

This news story is about 5,000 years out of date. Crete has been undergoing desertification since the plows first cut the soil and the island was turned over to the olive and goats.

I would like to see sustainable development appear rather than reimagining the present status quo as something that needs to be protected from manmade exploitation and abuse. All of the Mediterranean landscape is the result of 1000s of years of alterations and modification.

[somethingawful01]

Excellent report, thank you Al Jazeera.

[namniekib]

That's the real issue.even back in Plato's era,he commented on how Greece turned from an agricultural center into"the bones of an old man's body."Overgrazing and deforestation destroyed much of the Mediterranean region.

[bgturk]

Sahara is shifting north.

[zutroy1]

I want to thank Al Jazeera for carrying these stories, as an Earth Sciences major, the propsect of Greece wanting to reroute a major river for it's agricultural lobby makes me sick, and stories about overgrazing are all but nonexistant in western media.

This is the major issue of the future, as ice caps melt we lose on of the major reserves of fresh water on the planet and the sooner we all learn to conserve water, the better off we will be.

Thank you Al-Jazeera!

[TECHKLEC]

Cyprus is dry too, but the Greek government has started desalination facilities there in an attempt to remedy the situation.

[teemuruskeepaa]

Crete is becoming a desert anyway because of the shift of the zones of vegetation, and because it in the middle of a salt sea.