The environment is in a state of ‘anarchy’

'The tourism sector is the "sacred cow." We still regard it as the engine of the economy, without taking its impacts into account. We don't take the climate crisis into account even though a Bank of Greece report underscored the impact a decade ago. We're not just discovering them now,' says Nikos Petrou. [Nikos Kokkalias]

We met with Nikos Petrou, the president of the first environmental organization ever to be established in Greece, the Hellenic Society for the Protection of Nature (HSPN), on a scorching-hot day in downtown Athens.

The environment champion and renowned nature photographer believes that climate change is here to prove, in the worst possible way, just how unsustainable the policies Greece is pursuing and antiquated the prevailing mentalities toward the issue are.

Petrou is disappointed by how scantily and often superficially the issue of environmental protection is treated in this country, arguing that the absence of cohesive frameworks to this end essentially facilitates unchecked exploitation. Scant environmental democracy - manifested in how public consultation on important legislation is carried out, for example - demonstrates the state's dismissive attitude toward...

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