Land Of Greece Research Articles

Why reconnect to nature in times of crisis? Ecosystem contributions to the resilience and well‐being of people going back to the land in Greece

Abstract Multiple crises, including climate change, ecosystem degradation, economic, political and social upheavals, severely impact people's well‐being. Ecosystem services (or nature's contributions to people) play a key role during crisis that needs to be further elucidated. Most research focusses on the material benefits that ecosystems provide in times of crisis, paying less attention to intertwined intangible, nonmaterial dimensions. Yet, these intangible ecosystem benefits are often crucial for people's resilience and well‐being in times of need. We examine the role that nature plays for resilience and well‐being in times of crisis through a case study of Greece's back‐to‐the‐land movement during the European economic crisis. We conducted semistructured interviews with 76 households that had gone back‐to‐the‐land to understand why people sought to reconnect to nature and what their experiences were. Our results show that reconnecting to nature provided material ecosystem benefits such as food and income often from previously undervalued ecosystems (e.g. abandoned orchards) as well as nonmaterial ecosystem benefits such as mental health, feelings of safety, calm and independence that helped people cope with the crisis and adapt and transform to new socio‐ecological contexts. Participants reported that reconnecting to nature also changed their relational values. People mentioned gaining new perspectives, meanings and relationships with others and the natural world. While the crisis significantly affected people's material well‐being, reconnecting with nature helped people cope with crisis but also prompted a profound reevaluation of what constitutes a good life, leading to changes in their subjective and relational well‐being. This enhanced their capacity to act and plan for the future (their agency). Overall, our research emphasizes how reconnecting to nature and its multidimensional ecosystem benefits during crises can have transformative effects on individuals' resilience, well‐being and their relationships with the environment. Our research shows that not only material benefits of ecosystem services need to be valued but also intangible, nonmaterial benefits that affect material, subjective and relational dimensions of well‐being and resilience. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

From the Land of Greece to the Lands of Titan

From the Land of Greece to the Lands of Titan

The Protection of Land in Greece – before and after the implementation of the Environmental Liability Directive

On September 29, 2009 the Presidential Decree on Environmental Liability that implements the Environmental Liability Directive came into force. Environmental protection was previously provided in legislative works as well, such as in the Constitution and in the Law on Environmental Protection, which are shortly portrayed. Though, through the Presidential Decree on Environmental Liability, long awaited land protection legislation in Greece finally came to pass. The definitions set out, the competent authorities, the preventive and remedial actions, as well as the offenders liable for the preventive and remedial costs are analysed. Equally the cases of multiple party causation foreseen, that include contributory negligence of operator, producer, importer, supplier and public authority, are set out. During this analysis, a comparative view of the final form of the Degree with the initial draft thereof is offered. Special mention is made of the polluter-pays principle in Greece that is compared with the ones in the United Kingdom and in Germany. Finally, some aspects that have not been regulated in the Presidential Decree, contrary to those in the United Kingdom, Germany and The Netherlands, are noted.

Afforestation of rural land in greece: a multinomial logistic regression analysis of driving factors

This article deals with the importance of European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development through the implementation of afforestation schemes in rural communities. The main aim of the article is to investigate the spatial patterns of afforestation in Greece, the driving factors behind these patterns as well as the degree of the success of the EU policy for forest expansion through afforestation of arable land. Therefore, the focus is on providing a concrete appraisal regarding the contribution of EU 2080/92 and 1257/99 Regulations to the improvement of regional forest status by means of increasing forest areas and improving the local people's standard of living. The study area covers the entire Greek territory which consists of 51 administrative prefectures. Methodologically speaking, the empirical analysis is based on a multinomial logistic regression model targeted at providing a thorough understanding of the major driving factors that influence rural communities' response to the regulations. The environmental importance of arable land afforestation is highlighted as well as the extent to which the regulations has met the initial expectations. Keywords: afforestation, EU Regulation 2080/92, EU Regulation 1257/99, forest resources, Greece, multifunctional agriculture, multinomial logistic regression, rural development, rural land, spatial analysis. In recent decades, land use patterns have undergone tremendous transformations of such a magnitude that have attracted considerable attention within the scientific community. At present, an international multidisciplinary debate is in progress among scientists, experts, policy makers, non-governmental organisations and various economic and institutional players with some interest at or involvement in land use allocation. In some respects, this is due to the fact that the magnitude and pace of land change have risen considerably, affecting almost all fundamental components of the system created from both natural and anthropogenic communities. The most affected uses of land seem to be agricultural and forest uses. Rural areas in the EU make up 80% of the territory and have approximately 25% of the population. These areas have undergone major adjustments resulting from agricultural policies and other driving forces such as policy decisions about tourism, transportation networks and forestry. Implications have been great and pressuring, especially those concerning forests and soil, ranging from biotic diversity threats, desertification and forest and open land 'squeeze' to increased vulnerability to human settlements as well as local water and food shortage. Therefore, there is a pressuring need for designing and applying integrated, sustainable and realistic forest policies tightly connected to the requirements for improving the local people's quality of life. The declining economic viability of rural areas not only in Greece but also in other Mediterranean countries has forced the decision makers to develop policies targeted at delivering support to the rural communities to invert the current situation. Multifunctional forestry is perceived as a means of rural development. It is also considered to be an important vehicle for diversifying the countryside through the restoration of existing woodlands and the establishment of new forests on suitable land including former agricultural land (1, 2). In this way, it is possible to strengthen the livelihood base and the quality of life in rural areas. Afforestation of marginal agricultural land through the EU Regulations 2080/92 and 1257/99 is a Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) target focused on (a) decreasing agricultural goods production

The Hunt and the Erotic

No serious argument proves that mythology is only a by-product or a residue of history. On the contrary, a certain number of analyses and theoretical reflections on the myth suggest that different levels of meaning, covering the whole body of mythology, demonstrate a great autonomy and that if the hunt, for example, introduces a series of myths, in a society as fundamentally agricultural as Greece in the first millenium, it is not a distant echo but rather is faithful to the social means of production of a horde of hunters who had crossed the clearings of History some millenia before, but in a less diffuse manner because the cynegetic activity constitutes an excellent operative in the scheme of the myth. For a series of reasons: the hunt, a fundamentally masculine activity where the confrontation with wild animals results in bloodshed in order to procure a meat complement, contrasts with the cultivation of the land but is closely linked with warfare. If this is completely the privilege of the male, because it is a work of death, the production of cultivated foods, on the contrary, takes place on the level of gestation and reproduction, even if working the land in Greece is assumed by men.