Greek environmental demonstrators rallied outside parliament, cycled through nature trails and sent thousands of protest e-mails to the government.
ATHENS, Greece -- Greek environmental demonstrators rallied outside parliament, cycled through nature trails and sent thousands of protest e-mails to the government.
Sunday's action was not part of Live Earth concerts around the world, but was held to protest damage to a national park caused by a recent wildfire.
The blaze destroyed thousands of hectares of pine, fir and oak forest on Mount Parnitha, near Athens, between June 28 and July 3. Protected species of deer, turtle, snakes and other animals were also killed in the fire or forced to scatter.
Several thousand demonstrators, blowing whistles and chanting "shame on you," gathered outside parliament Sunday, some holding up pieces of burnt trees from Parnitha forest.
"This time, people have really had enough ... we need more greenery in Athens," said protester Alexandra Kouraki, who was waving a green flag.
"Look what happened other times ... forests burnt down and houses appeared in their place."
Earlier Sunday, cyclists gathered at Parnitha, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the capital, other protesters with cell phones and digital cameras took pictures of the burnt forest, and bloggers continued a mass e-mailing campaign to government agencies.
Protesters are demanding tougher forest protection laws, arguing the government mishandled the Parnitha firefighting effort.
They also claim rapid urban expansion in the capital has been allowed spread across Greece's southern Attica region at the expense of the environment -- recently aided by large infrastructure projects built for the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
Greater Athens is home to around 4 million people, or more than a third of Greece's population.
"There is a genuine interest from the public (about the environment) that we've never seen before," Constantinos Liarikos, of the conservation group WWF, told The Associated Press.
"This protest started spontaneously, with some young people exchanging text messages on their cell phones, and it grew from there in a totally grass-roots way ... We are simply backing this effort."
The Parnitha fire broke out during a June heat wave across southeast Europe that saw temperatures reach 46 C (114.8 F) in Greece and killed more than 40 people in the Balkans and Italy.
Greek firefighters had been battling wildfires at the rate of 100 per day, when the blaze swept across the Parnitha national park and surrounding forests.
Public Order Minister Byron Polydoras described the Parnitha fire as "an act of God," and authorities rushed out plans to plant new trees and protect the scorched land from illegal development.
Polydoras said around 2,500 hectares of forest had been destroyed on Parnitha, but the WWF estimates about double that area was affected.
The group said more than half of the 3,800-hectare protected forest was destroyed in the fire. It wants that protected area to be expanded eight-fold to include surrounding forests, and to impose an overnight traffic ban to protect roaming animals.
"Right now the animals are scattered and scared, they don't know where to go. Lots of cars passing through the forest, especially at night, will only make this worse," Liarikos said.
An opinion poll published Sunday in the weekly Proto Thema newspaper found that 55 percent of Greeks personally held conservative Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis responsible for failing to deal with the fires adequately.
The GPO survey of 1,200 adults across Greece was carried on July 4 and 5. No margin of error was given.
Source: Associated Press
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