Greek fire eliminates trees, jobs of pine resin collectors
AGDINES, Greece — For generations, residents in the north of the Greek island of Evia have made their living from the dense pine forests surrounding their villages. Tapping the ubiquitous Aleppo pines for their resin, the viscous, sticky substance the trees use to protect themselves from insects and disease, provided a key source of income for hundreds of families.
But now, hardly any forest is left. A devastating wildfire, one of Greece’s most destructive single blazes in decades, rampaged across northern Evia for days earlier this month, swallowing woodland, homes and businesses and sending thousands fleeing.
The damage won’t just affect this year’s crop, resin collectors and beekeepers say, but for generations to come.
“It’s all over. Everything has turned to ash,” said Christos Livas, a 48-year-old resin collector and father of four.
Resin has been used by humans since antiquity and is found today in a dizzyingly broad array of products, from paint and solvents to pharmaceuticals, plastics and cosmetics. The north of Evia, Greece’s second-largest island, accounted for around 80% of the pine resin produced in Greece, and about 70% of the pine honey, locals say.
Satellite imagery shows the wildfire destroyed most of the island’s north. The devastation is breathtaking. Tens of thousands of hectares of forests and farmland were reduced to a dystopian landscape of skeletal, blackened trees silhouetted against a smoke-filled sky.
For trees to grow back to the point where resin can be extracted will take more than two decades, and probably
twice as long for the production of pine honey.
“In 10 years, the forest will become green again,” Livas said. “But for tapping, it will take 20, 25 years. For me, it’s all over. Even for a 30-yearold — what’s he going to do, find a job and then come back when he’s 50, 60 to tap pines? His legs won’t even hold him.”
Livas walked through the still smoldering remnants of the forest near his mountain village of Agdines, puffs of white and grey ash rising from beneath his boots as he surveyed the damage.
“This one, I remember since I was a young boy, from 15 years old,” he said, pointing to a blackened pine, the strip of peeled bark where resin had been extracted still visible. “This must have been tapped for 32, 33 years.”
Most of his livelihood has gone up in smoke, lost in a horrifying roar as the wildfire raced toward the village. “You could hear a rumble . ... It was like an earthquake,” Livas said.
The flames moved fast, leaving no time to collect the thousands of plastic bags pinned to the trees to gather the precious resin. Instead, local residents turned their attention to the village, ignoring an evacuation order and staying to save their homes.
They managed. But they couldn’t save the forest. And the villagers’ anger — at the government for not sending more firefighters sooner, for ordering evacuations when they say locals could have helped fight the flames - is palpable.
Livas had been extracting resin from about 3,000 trees, producing about 9-10 tons per year at 27 euro cents (32 cents) per kilogram. Of all the trees he was tapping, just one survived.
He supplemented his income by farming olive trees, raising animals and occasionally logging. But there are no trees to log now, and most of the olive trees are gone too.
“I have nowhere left. Everywhere I’ve been, everything is burnt,” he said.
With four young children to support, the eldest just 13, Livas said he’d look for new kinds of work. But with only a primary school education and unable to read or write, he seemed overwhelmed by the thought. The forest, farming, and collecting resin, which he’s been doing since he was 15, are all he’s ever known.
“What will I do now?” he said, stumbling for words. “I’ll look for a job. What will I do? Do I know what to do now?”