Our island features countless natural treasures. The land is graced by nature from one end to the other. Above all, countries having such clean shores are rare. You can see deep inside the sea, the water is crystal clear. The land is also adorned with unique species of plants. Mediterranean flora is quite typical, but it also features a vast diversity (of plants).

Hallo, eco-aware viewers, and welcome to Planet Earth: Our Loving Home. On today’s program we travel to Cyprus to meet Dr. Doğan Sahir, an architect and the president of the non-profit environmental organization, the Cyprus Green Action Group and Dr. Salih Gücel, director and assistant professor at the Near East University’s Environmental Science Institute to learn about this Mediterranean island’s unique ecosystem and the environmental challenges its inhabitants are facing due to harmful human activities and climate change.

We start with agriculture. Like elsewhere in the world, cultivating crops in a conventional manner causes long-term damage to the land upon which food is grown and even adversely affects areas far away from the farming operations.

We use excessive amounts of chemical fertilizers during our agricultural production. These chemicals are under strict control or completely banned in many countries, but we still tend to see them as very helpful additions and use them excessively, despite us having little land to cultivate. In a setting where neither adequate control nor certain monitoring procedures are in place we are detecting serious chemical accumulations in soil.

Certain locations suffer severe hazards of accumulated chemicals. This naturally has an impact on the crops, not to mention the problems set off when these chemicals are washed away by rain; these can contaminate the ground water and surface streams on their route to the sea and they will cause more problems in the seas.

We use herbicides to control the weeds. We have already wiped out many of our endemic plants. Be it endemic or not, any plant in an ecosystem has a role, increases the biodiversity, but sadly we have damaged this as well, and we keep cornering these plants each and every day.

Plants in Cyprus are the main source of life in Cyprus, just as they are all over the world. As well as human beings, all creatures benefit from plants as food, as sources of food, or to build shelters to hide in them, or to make their nests. In this respect, plants are the most important living resources of the world.

And in Cyprus, there are around 1,900 different plant species. Including the species, subspecies and variants we have 1,900 different plant species. Around 10% of them are indigenous to Cyprus only. This percentage, the 10% ratio of plant species which are unique to Cyprus, is primarily attributed to the geological formation of the island.

The loss of greenery across the island is very troubling to scientists, environmental advocates and others. The effects of climate change are exacerbated without sufficient levels of plant life, thus threatening the future sustainability of life on Cyprus.

Our island doesn’t have sufficient vegetation. It should cover around 30% of the land but currently only some 18%, 17.8% or 18.1% to be more exact of forest land is registered. But unfortunately not all of these lands are covered with forests. There is a continuous loss from wildfires.

As a result of these wildfires, forest areas in particular are destroyed. These negative effects later combine with the impacts of global warming and climate change and create challenging results.

For example when forests are destroyed by wildfires, the land becomes devoid of vegetation, soil becomes bare and becomes vulnerable. With cloudbursts occurring as a result of climate change, the soil is washed away into the sea. So, climate change combined with the human impact yields an increased erosion effect.

So, our actual forest area is merely 7.5%, far less than enough. These days, where global warming and global climate changes are devastating and destroying our planet, it is very sad that we don’t have the natural, green shelter on our island to control the microclimate or alleviate the impacts.

Bare soil surfaces and concrete surfaces will increase the reflected heat and since there is not enough vegetation to absorb it and to maintain the balance for oxygen and humidity, the discharged heat will warm up the atmosphere, and this warming when combined with the effects of water vapor from the seas around us, the greenhouse effect will be even more devastating in our country as we are on an island.

This means that our island which is at the most vulnerable, hottest spot in the middle of the Mediterranean basin, which endures the most challenging impacts of the greenhouse effect, will endure even harsher climate conditions due to our own mistakes. If this scarcity of green plants on the land expands into the sea, calamity will be awaiting us, because it is a well-known fact that a great portion of the oxygen we breathe in, around 80% of it, is generated by marine plants.

Keep in mind a great part of the oxygen we breathe is produced by marine plants, not the green plants on the land. If we continue to overlook this, and destroy the marine life to get some water we will worsen the severity of the disaster awaiting us.

Dr. Sahir says recycling and waste management practices are not well developed on the island, leading to the contamination of Cyprus’s soil, air and freshwater resources.

Our wastes are piled up at certain locations, the so-called “unsanitary disposal,” and from time to time they are incinerated openly or catch fire by themselves or are allowed to burn, or the wastes simply burn out of control. We have around 100 waste dump sites, and innumerable chemicals released by fires can have direct toxic effects on humans, or carcinogens like dioxin cause even worse harms in the long run.

These substances, which have the potential to harm nature as a whole as well as humans, puts wildlife under pressure and play a role in the greenhouse effect when suspended in the air and also drop on the ground with the acid rain, causing more soil pollution.

On the other hand, these wastes can filter into the soil and pollute the groundwater.

Globally approximately three billion people live in areas where water demand is higher than supply. Cyprus is one such place, causing severe hardship to island residents.

Today the world is suffering problems involving the reduction of resources, especially the water resources due to climate change. Cyprus is an island. Water is rather scarce. We feel the extreme effects of climate change.

Our country is unfortunately poor in freshwater resources. Since we are an island we have limited freshwater springs. We keep exploiting the groundwater.

Desalination from seawater is now being considered. As a matter of fact, this method poses a very serious threat for our seas, because of the lack of laws and regulations or the unfulfilled need for improved rules. It's a threat with a potential to destroy the biological balance not only for the sea, a threat that can bounce back to hit the people on the land as well.

Dr. Sahir believes that the people of Cyprus must take constructive action now to assure a better future for their island as well as the planet.

There are several things that need to be done in our country. We must at least prevent these effects. Waste materials must be recycled. Since we are a small country such an effort may not promise a significant income.

However the harms caused by these substances directly on human health, on soil, in our groundwater, which is already scarce, as I've just said, and the secondary damage and pollution on the agricultural lands as they are washed away by surface streams and rainwater are immeasurable. We have to recycle the wastes in a proper way.

An effective and environmentally-friendly way to secure water resources is by harvesting rainwater.

However an examination of meteorological data reveals that although we have decreasing precipitation rates, if we could harvest 8.5% or 10% of the average precipitation in our country we will have more water than the amount we are readily consuming. If that portion of rainwater could be harvested and made available to people with a sanitary method, we wouldn’t be speaking of the scarce water resources problem I mentioned.

There are simple and effective actions we all can take to aid our planet at this critical time, namely following an animal-free diet and leading an Earth-friendly lifestyle.

Earth's diversity belongs to the Earth. We shouldn’t think that Earth's diversity is at man's disposal, we shouldn’t think that humans are the exclusive owners to enjoy this. For that reason, when we are enjoying the biodiversity around us, we should keep in mind that other living things need it too, benefit from that too, and act accordingly.

If we can change some of our habits, we can survive this. We can keep the balance from worsening, the system from falling apart and ensure our survival and surely the survival of our children. In our country we have a customary habit. Everyone, at the weekends, is accustomed to making kebab. We eat meat, we are mostly meat eaters. However a grave fact stands out.

One of the key drivers of global warming, is the livestock industry, consumption of animal products; i.e., meat consumption. Methane gas emitted as a consequence of the livestock industry has serious impacts. The figures given are terrifying and if we can simply prevent this, we should never say, "There is nothing we can do."

If we can stop this alone, and be vegetarian, indeed we will be able to save the Earth. Yes, let's be vegetarian and save the Earth. Please, play your part in saving our planet by adopting a vegetarian diet.

We sincerely thank you Doctors Doğan Sahir and Salih Gücel for informing us of the pressing environmental issues facing Cyprus and for sharing your concerns and solutions to the climate change crisis affecting the island and the rest of our planet. May we all quickly adopt the organic vegan lifestyle to forever ensure a safe and beautiful world.

Be Veg, Go Green 2 Save the Planet!

To contact today’s guests, please visit the following websites:
Dr. Doğan (Cyprus Green Action Group) :
www.Facebook.com/group.php?gid=51585678216
Dr. Salih Gücel :
www.CYEF.net/en/node/741

Thank you for your kind company on today’s edition of Planet Earth: Our Loving Home. Up next is Enlightening Entertainment after Noteworthy News. May the magnificence of Heaven’s creation enlighten your days.