fires and floods !

Hello !

I couldn t quite place my post in the right forum, i hope resources is the right one !

I am an olive farmer in Greece for the last 10 years

In august 2021 we were hit by an enormous wildfire that burned almost all the forest in the once beautiful and green island of Evia. My farm suffered a great deal with loss of material 40% of the olive trees and also damages to the house I live in. The worse however was the loss of a beautiful pine forest that dressed the mountains and hills surrounding the little village of Rovies.

This summer was the hottest ever with temperatures of over 40 C for at least 15 days in the row in late july.... just after this, september 7nth and also 4 days ago we had storms of more than 400mm in a day for both occasions... the damage is quite devastating. Besides all the obvious and very heavy damage on man made structures which have a great economic impact, we also suffered from major erosion of the mountains taking tons of topsoil to the sea and creating huge gutters in what was, before, dirt roads, but also in parts of the olive grove that were on the path of the water torrents.

Authorities tried to prevent this after the fire by dropping tons of cement in multiple dams across the streams, some of which broke and many got filled in with rubble already from the first flood.

In my opinion only well planned landscape works and planting fast growing and deep rooting trees can bring a real solution in the long term.

I am writing to you to ask your opinion about how to go about this issue. The scale of the project is too big for a small team of interested farmers to be able to fund, plan and carry out. Would you be able to point me to the right direction for finding funding and experts to help implement such large scale landscaping ?

Thank you very much !

Hi Geogios
My heart goes out to you and I wish you well in your endeavors. I have added your post to a few other forums (although 'tips for awkwards spots' also doesn't quite seem a big enough subject!).
If I understand you correctly you are really looking for help with direction? To form a good plan for future work rather than funding as such at this stage? Hopefully there will be people with experience of international organisations that can step in and help guide you.
I would also suggest that you know more than you think you do already. As a local team you know the ground conditions and what might help. Maybe there are existing projects in other countries which you could use for guidance. There are many areas of the world facing similar issues (including in the US) in recent times.

I have worked a little with politicians in this country.   First, I would avoid offending anyone …you will need their support eventually. But, that doesn’t mean you sell out. Perhaps a position such as, “ In spite of the best efforts available at the time, the approaches used have not always been sufficient to address the problems.  It is suggested that more in depth, long term solutions be explored and implemented.”

Of course, you will suggest what those solutions may be.  Contact anyone and everyone who hold office…more importantly, contact their advisors.  Explain how the suggested approaches will be of benefit to the politicians as well as the region.

You know your local politics much better than I do. While their are benefits to aligning yourself with some politicians, their are risks as well.   If you are seen as a friend of the A Party, everyone in the B Party may oppose you….for the rest of your life.  I accepted a promotion once, when I was young and naive, from a governors task force, it was the kiss of death.  Not only was the opposing party against me, but all other fractions of the governors own party opposed me.   The irony was that I had voted for the governor’s  opponent.

Get as many locals on board as possible.   If you ask to meet with a politician, you will get questionable results.  If you invite a politician to a meeting of 200 people, the politician will attend.  Be sure to invite the politicians potential opponents as well.

Hello Nancy,
thanks for the quick reply ! well to be honest everything is a bit mixed up in my head and heart after the disaster.

Well there is let s say 2 projects that can be done

1. around my farm there s another 4-5 family units that are interested to find ways for water management, rainwater catchment and flood prevention.
we are at the foothills of surrounding slopes and since I first arrived here I was fantasizing about a sepp holzer style of  terracing and ponds that can help us have more water for the summer months. Now after the fire, these slopes that are planted with olives take all the runoff of the mountain since there s no trees to slow down the rainwater. So this dream has now become a need for us. What I am trying to find is a way to get a hydrology expert to visit and make a plan for the works that are needed, and then find a team of volunteers and machines that can help us implement the plan. For getting the expert here and for the machine work we need funds, so that is the second need, and I am asking here to see if anyone can point me in the right direction for the funding.

2. Scaling up the first smaller project I think permaculture style landworks could work very good in the wider area that surrounds the village of Rovies, but I guess for that matter, local government and forestry department has to be involved. I think this is a very long term goal that can, though, be inspired by the positive outcome of the first small scale project.

Hi Georgios,
I've had a little go at searching for organisations that may be of help. I found a few web links:
First there is a European report on flood risk reduction through 'green infrastructure' : https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/green-infrastructure-and-flood-management . It doesn't look immediately helpful - they seem to be focussing more on flood plains, but if you look through it there may be a mention of an organisation of more relevance.
Second: The Zurich flood alliance says it is "finding practical ways to support communities in developed and developing countries strengthen their resilience to flood risk. " which sounds like they may be of help to you: https://floodresilience.net/zurich-flood-resilience-alliance/
Thirdly Engineers for Disaster Relief (https://www.redr.org.uk/About) is a UK organisation which probably won't be of direct help - they are more to do with dealing with aftermaths of disasters rather than avoiding them. However they may either have members willing to help (they will certainly have civil engineers amongst their ranks), or know of organisations who do deal more with avoidance of flooding.