Reforestation plan aiming for 30 million new trees

Greece is set to implement the country’s largest ever reforestation program over a 10-year period, according to Environment Minister Kostis Hatzidakis, who on Monday presented the new National Reforestation Plan to the Council of Ministers. 

Having secured 310 million euros from the European Union Recovery Fund, he said that 30 million trees, grown in Greece, will blanket 50,000 hectares across the country, in a bid to address the country’s environmental shortcomings.

“We are implementing the largest reforestation program that has ever existed in the country,” he said, bemoaning the fact that “in Greece every year almost 1% of our forests are burned.”

He also took a swipe at the previous SYRIZA government, which, he said, failed to absorb €245 million from a European program for the protection of forests. 

“We are trying to put an end to this sad phenomenon” he said.