Sympraxis Team, as the official collaborator of the PAPASTRATOS company in sustainable development issues, has been designated by the competent General Directorate for Forests & Forest Environment as a Reforestation Contractor for elaborating the required studies and carrying out reforestation projects in the areas of the Municipalities of Dionysos and Oropos, Attica, which were afflicted by the fires of August 2021. The goal of this synergy is the planting of 70,000 saplings, so that 1,000 acres of burned land will become a forest again, with trees compatible with the Greek biodiversity –carob trees, Judas trees, arbutuses, cypresses, pines, pepper trees, holm oaks–, a mixed composition that protects the forest more in relation to the highly flammable pure pine forests. In addition to planting the trees until 2023, there is a commitment to care for, water and fertilise them for a period of three years.

The project’s implementation will be supported and financed –with a total of €1 million– by PAPASTRATOS, within the framework of the company’s “Continuing Together” programme for Sustainable Development. This is the first major professional reforestation that is implemented following the issuance of an official Deed of Contractor Appointment by the competent state agencies. The areas where it takes place are carefully selected, at the suggestion of the competent bodies, as not amenable to natural regeneration, so that hman intervention does not affect the healing work carried out by nature itself.

Sympraxis Team has already launched the preparatory procedures for the implementation of the planting of initially 500 acres in the wider area of ​​Agios Stefanos, Attica (Municipality of Dionysos): removal of natural regeneration that has been burned twice, opening of pits, designing of a water supply system, etc., so that planting will be ready to proceed immediately in the beginning of the planting season in mid-October 2022 until March 2023. At the same time, the required consultations with authorities and agencies are underway, so that the second part of the project in Hippocrates Politia (Municipality of Oropos) also enters the planning phase.