A few weeks ago, almost half of Greece was on fire as 200 forest fires raged and resulted in 68 deaths and the destruction of hundreds of villages. The fires lasted for 10 days, making them the worst natural disaster in Greek history, said a group of panelists at Cornell Sept. 21.

Yet no one knows how the fires began. They started 20 days before Greece's general elections, which has spawned conspiracy theories, national unrest and, like Katrina in the United States, many questions about the ineffectiveness of the government's response.

To address these issues, the Mediterranean Initiative of the Institute for European Studies at Cornell sponsored "The Mediterranean on Fire: A Roundtable on the Recent Fires in Greece, and on Climate Change in the Mediterranean." Panelists included Cornell natural resources professors Timothy Fahey and Joseph Yavitt; Davydd Greenwood, professor of anthropology; Tammo Steenhuis, professor of biological and environmental engineering; and Miltos Kininis, Cornell graduate student in molecular biology and genetics. The panel was moderated by Gail Holst-Warhaft, director of the Mediterranean Initiative.

While many people blamed the fires on the hot, dry Greek climate, the fact that the fires broke out far away from one another and at night, when spontaneous forest fires are unlikely, negates that theory. Kininis said that people "didn't know where to direct their anger." Conspiracy theories, including hostile foreign powers and anarchists in Greece seeking to create instability before the elections, abounded in the media. These theories, according to Kininis, "divided the people, destroyed potential relationships with other countries, created fear and diffused criticism of the government."

Arson for profit also has been proposed. In Greece, it is illegal to build on untouched forest, but burned land is considered fair game for developers, and Greeks have committed arson in the past to profit off the land, he said. "Two weeks after the fires, the Ministry of Finance signed a contract to build a tourist infrastructure on 27 million square feet of burned land." Nonetheless, it is doubtful that the true causes of the disaster will ever be satisfactorily determined, he said.

Steenhuis noted that the fires will have immense environmental consequences, especially for agriculture. "When soil burns, it becomes water-repellant for the next two or three years," he said, adding that rain will now run off the soil. Greenwood noted that the entire Mediterranean is now entering a "period of mega-drought." Several panelists commented that environmental awareness in Greece and much of the Mediterranean is extremely low, and so preventing more fires may be difficult.

Fahey described how the United States reacts to forest fires very differently. "In America, environmentalists criticize preventative measures," he said. Here, under President Bush's "Healthy Forest Initiative," fires are prevented by cutting down trees. Greeks, however, hope to prevent fires while keeping their forests.

The panel agreed that houses should no longer be built in forests in Greece and that village residents and fire brigades should receive more fire-training. While climate change continues and burned land remains valuable, however, it is likely that the Greek tragedy will be repeated throughout the Mediterranean, the panelists concurred.

Chandni Navalkha '10 is a writer intern at the Cornell Chronicle.