Growing demand for firewood driving illegal logging
The spike in demand for firewood due to rising natural gas prices and timber from the construction sector are driving a burgeoning business in illegal logging, according to local officials and loggers. “They’re destroying the mountains; the situation is out of control. We need much stricter controls and better legislation,” the head of the Ioannina Union of Forestry Associations, Thomas Tsoupinakis, tells Kathimerini, speaking of trucks packed with timber coming from protected forestland on Mount Pindus. Apart from the absence of a more efficient oversight system and abuses of logging rules, one of the biggest problems, according to experts, is that regional forestry services have fallen behind in defining areas that can be legally logged and permissible quantities. [Shutterstock]
