Stealing Trees
TREES
In response to distressed calls about the felling of three fully grown pine trees up at Pine Bay I had been trying to contact the owner of the pine forest to see if the owners knew about what is going on. As a result I had a moving phone call from an elderly lady, a Pissourian, who lives in Limassol. Mrs Lenia was deeply distressed, and confirmed that the family have not authorised any felling on their land. Like so many Pissouri landowners, the family are the victims of the depressing non-stop illegal felling of trees in the countryside, which the authorities seem to lack any will to tackle.
Mrs Lenia loves this specially beautiful piece of Pissouri countryside which she owns. Adjacent to Pine Bay, it is called Trypiti. Trypitis are the ancient standing stones of Cyprus , and you can check out in Pissouri Contact online the story of the vandalism of this last Pissouri tripiti (we used to have three - you can see a tripiti which has been rescued from a similar fate in the centre of Plataniskia). Mrs Lenia wants her family’s tripiti back in Pissouri, where it belongs, and we both felt that the Village must fight to get it back.
The point of writing is that we all really need to step up our efforts to protect Pissouri’s remaining trees. Please help to guard the countryside. If you hear chainsaws check it out. If you see someone felling mature trees (as opposed to trimming branches) call the Police and get them to see if there is a licence for the cutting. If you don’t want to get involved, call me and I will call the Police.
I know another Pissourian who, like thousands of other Cypriots, left the Island years ago to find work in the UK after 1974. When he came back, years later, his entire olive grove of 100 trees had been stolen. This is Pissourians doing this to other Pissourians. It is depriving the whole community of their heritage, and these crooks need to be stopped.