The forest fires in Greece

"First Italy, then the Canary Islands, and now the fiery inferno in Greece: southern Europe's forest fires are taking on increasingly devastating dimensions. A fatal combination of unscrupulous arsonists, poor forest management and inactive politicians is to blame for these disasters," Holger Dambeck writes. "For the World Wide Fund for Nature, the fact that people could even think of setting fires is a clearly linked to economic necessity. The market value of timber has gone down dramatically. Landowners are forced to find new sources of income. They try to convert their land into building land - legally or illegally. Back in July the WWF had already called for a new pan-European law forbidding construction on burnt woodland areas... It's unlikely that the situation in southern Europe will improve over the coming years and decades if the affected countries fail to take decisive action against the arsonists. Droughts and extreme heat waves will become increasingly frequent as a result of climate change."

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