Today is World Environment Day
However Kenan Atakol, head of the Environmental Protection Agency in the TRNC is far from happy – saying that in some areas of North Cyprus, ‘we are committing environmental suicide’ that will threaten the future of the TRNC.
The EPA has been warning about the degradation of our environment for the past eleven years, with this years their report shows a worsening of the situation.
Mr Atakol states that just as environmental issues have become important in the rest of the world, we are going in the opposite direction by ignoring them. Instead Mr Atakol is calling on the public to regard it as their duty to protect the environment.
“The citizens and the leaders of the TRNC are deaf to the daily destruction of the natural beauty of the TRNC.”
The EPA was set up in 2002 and has reported every year since on the increasing destruction of the environment. Mr Atakol says that now the TRNC is covered in rubbish, natural wonders have been destroyed, flora and fauna decimated and the beaches polluted. Unplanned construction has caused irreversible damage leaving ugly developments unattended.
Mr Atakol also highlighted increasing noise levels, air pollution that has exceeded EU levels, and the high level of agricultural chemicals used. He concludes his analysis by saying that other countries are striving to create more national parks, but that TRNC citizens seem hell bent on destroying the one national park that we do have.
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