Forest maps are ‘crucial’ to avert arson attacks

Experts call for reforms that would discourage prospective land-grabbers

Volunteers and employees of the Greek Red Cross yesterday packaged food, donated by companies, for fire-stricken citizens. Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis visited the Red Cross warehouse and praised their work.

The drawing up of forest maps, as part of broader efforts to complete a Greek land register, should be made a priority if authorities want to avert arson attacks by would-be land-grabbers, experts said yesterday.

«If there was a land register, there would be no land-grabbers and the number of fires set intentionally would be reduced,» Theodoros Dragiotis of the Technical Chamber of Greece (TEE) told Kathimerini. According to TEE, the cost of preparing forest maps would represent just 4 percent of the total cost of completing the land register.

At present, only one tenth of land in the Peloponnese, which bore the brunt of recent fires, has been recorded in the land register.

The destructive fires of the past week, and mounting suspicions that many were started by arsonists, have also fuelled protests from conservation groups overseas.

«Every year we see more luxury villas being built on forestland,» Bill Jackson, president of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) told Kathimerini. «Greece should push through legislative change to protect its natural environment,» Jackson said. The IUCN chief called for the creation of a body for the prevention of forest fires, to include foresters and fire service officers.

In a related development, European Union MPs yesterday called for a common «rapid reaction» force to tackle natural disasters, backing a proposal made by Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis.

Meanwhile, firefighters scrambled to extinguish a fire that rekindled on the slopes of Mount Parnon in the southern Peloponnese, saying late yesterday that it had been brought under control. Fires near Mount Taygetos in the Peloponnese, in Preveza, northwestern Greece, and on Corfu were also said to be under control.

Forecasts of heavy rain over the Peloponnese today were a relief to firefighters but a concern to local authorities who have just started anti-flood works in the region.

Yesterday, rescuers found the body of 25-year-old Constantinos Costakis in a river near Artemida, Ileia, the last of the 65 fire victims who had not been accounted for.