The first Easter I spent in Diafani it rained so much the valleys from Olymbos and Avlona were hosts to waterfalls, pools and streams. The footpath at the bottom of the valley could not be followed and walkers were forced to follow a winding path along the canyon side. Go there now and you may notice a path high up the sides of the valley tracing the remains of an ancient irrigation system.
For the past few years there has been very little rain or none at all in North Karpathos and Saria. This year there has been a lot. Without rain there are few olives, without lots of rain in the autumn the olives are small and bitter and bear little oil, they are covered in dust and difficult to pick. Having your own olive trees and olive oil is a matter of much pride to the local people. They love their trees. Harvesting olives gives rise to local customs and songs and mantinades are remembered, rewritten and sung. The olive trees in the North of the island are of an ancient stock, chosen for their resistance to drought conditions. But they are suffering. Attacked by the pine wilt nematode, the pine needles turn red and the trees dry out and die. Dead trees scattered about the landscape in dry conditions increase the chances of forest fire. There have always been forest fires on Karpathos, it is one way the trees spread their coverage. As a tree burns its pine cones explode and spread over the landscape so the forest replenishes itself. Unfortunately this takes time. and without rain, and with the possibility of more fire the trees cannot keep up with the environmental pressures. Eventually the landscape will become denuded.
Global environmental changes heighten the dangers. In conditions of drought the trees are susceptible to insect attack, the nemotodes spread faster than the pine trees and the landscape dries out. The warming of the atmosphere leads to greater amounts of water being taken from the land and sea. So when it rains it rains a lot. Sometimes in Karpathos it rains a great deal, run off tears great gashes in the landscape, soil is washed away and flora and fauna disturbed.
We have frogs on Karpathos. They are endangered, but they must wait another day.
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