25.5 % of Greece's surface is covered by either forest or woodland, but unfortunately there is not yet a central system that shows where they are in our map.

According to the Greek legislation, building in forest areas, public or private, is strictly prohibited. However, the last 50 years, many forests have been burned, often by arson, and large pieces of land have been converted to plots. This led to a decrease of green space around all large cities, especially Athens, where land?s value is very high.

Currently, each separate plot is characterized either as part of a forest area or not, separately. This allows a high level of arbitrariness and even corruption, given that the financial interests are high. This has led many forests of Attica (area around Athens) to become plots, while houses and even apartment buildings have been built inside them. For example, last week, the Environmental Minister claimed that over 200.000 buildings have been built in forest areas, on the island of Salamis near Athens!

Since the 1990's it has been repeatedly attempted by many governments to create forest maps, with an emphasis on Attica. In 2010-2011 there was a great effort from the Ministry of Environment, and forest maps for the biggest part of Attica were created, but lack of financing, due to the economic crisis (and possibly personal interests), decelerated the program.

Today, 55% of Greece's land has forest maps, even though most of them are not legally final. For the remaining 45%, containing many areas of aggressive real estate development, no work has been done so far in mapping them. There are even areas within forests where hundreds of buildings have been built and it is very hard to return the forest to its original form.

The only way to curb the destruction of forests and woodlands is to complete the forest maps as soon as possible, so that there will be no holes allowing continued degradation of these areas.

The environmental organizations, such as WWF, Philodassiki Society and the "Observation for the regeneration of the fire-stricken areas" of the Technical chamber of Greece, in order to protect forests, have given greater weight to the integration of forest maps.
This will facilitate the development and the investments because it will be clear to everybody what is allowed where, in contrast to the grey current definition, which created serious problems for investors.

"The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed." as Mahatma Gandhi has said.