by bill cobbett » Sun May 26, 2013 11:45 pm
On the matter of the road that's mentioned above...
There was a lot of direct damage done within the protected area by the widening. No attempt was made to bring in conservation expertise to minimise the destruction to habitats caused by the works.
No Environmental Impact Analysis was carried out.
The process was simply one of the basest, get the road widened quickly and cheaply for the expedience of interested non-CY parties that have their eye on developing mass-tourism facilities up there.
Access roads to and through protected areas are used as a tool to manage visitor numbers, something that happens in National Parks in a lot of the World, so it's a good thing that it takes 2-3 hours to get to Apostolos Andreas from Nicosia.
On the matter of the situation in the Free Areas that is also refered to...
We should compare like with like and the comparable area in the Free Areas is the Akamas, an area which is as rich in diversity, rare habitats (like sand-dune coastal heathland) and threatened species, and like the Karpas an area which is under huge pressure for developments, by outside interests as well as by locals in the few villages up there. So far the Akamas has been preserved, and although the Republic's record up there isn't perfect, there are no asphalt roads through it.
