Plans for Hymettos

Mount Hymettos from the Acropolis

Amid all the economic doom and gloom coming out of Greece recently, it’s nice to report a bright spot. On Monday August 9 the PASOK government presented a draft presidential decree to protect the great mass of Mount Hymettos, which lines the south eastern edge of Athens’ metropolitan area. With the horrific destruction wrought on Mount Parnes in 2007 lying to the northwest of the city and the subsequent damaging fires on Mount Pentele (to the east) and elsewhere in the Attic countryside, it’s become vital to keep at least one of Athens’ ‘lungs’ functioning. The previous New Democracy government showed its concern by proposing to drill a tunnel through the mountain and put another highway through it to connect with the interior of Attica where the new airport is located.

PASOK signalled its different vision by finally separating environment and development into two different ministries, and so it was the new minister of the environment, Tina Birbili, who announced a preliminary proposal in April that was followed by public consultations. The measures will not be a panacea, of course, but if they are implemented consistently (a perennial problem here) then the mountain’s future looks a lot rosier than anyone could have imagined just a year ago.

Most dramatic is the increase in the area (Alpha Zone) under the most rigorous protection from 76,000 stremmata (7,600 hectares) to 93,000 stremmata (9,300 hectares). No hunting or tree cutting will be permitted within this area, and all the marble quarries will be shut down – a very welcome outcome to anyone who has seen the great white scars these have caused on the mountainside. The most visible change that visitors will notice (if it actually comes to pass) is the removal of all the ugly radio & tv towers that have sprouted up, without any control, over the past years along the mountain’s ridge. At most two ‘arrays’ will be allowed on the mountain to satisfy the needs of Athens’ chaotic mass media. Outside this zone will be an area of lesser protection (Beta Zone), where some limited building will be allowed. An archaeological zone will also be created in the municipality of Koropi at the mountain’s south end.

Surprisingly, all the military camps on Hymettos except for two major ones will be dismantled (let’s hope). A few grey areas remain: the fate of ongoing road extensions, especially connected with the Attiki Odos, is unclear, and a huge 2.8 hectare development adjacent to the police school seems to be going ahead but without parking facilities (!)

At present all this, and more, is contained within a draft presidential decree, which the government intends to make law by the end of the year. Any philhellene will hope that this proposal does actually become law; but any philhellene will also know that things are never that simple in Greece. Hymettos is as much a part of Athens’ heritage as the Parthenon. On a summer’s evening the setting sun turns its western flanks a brilliant violet – ‘violet-crowned Athens’ has been the city’s description since the poet Pindar in the fifth-century BC. Let’s hope that that sight can be preserved for the next millennium.
(Details from Eleutherotypia, Tuesday August 10, 2010)