CENTURIES OLD TREES, OPEN LANDSCAPES AND PEOPLE

In the treeless landscapes of the past, trees were considered as precious assets. Even if memory and nostalgia embellish the past, locals talk about privately owned trees of great economic value, such as huge centuries-old prickly oaks that were shredded during the winter or others associated with personal stories such as that of the “tree of names” in Kapesovo in central Zagori, that grows in the protective sacred forest of Gradista, above the village. All the boys in the village, as soon as they entered into puberty, used to carve their name on this tree trunk; because of this, the tree has a special place in the collective memory of the community.

In the past people used to be more familiar with open agroforestry landscapes. Thus, unlike “the green” or “the forest” which is perceived positively by residents of large urban centers when visiting the mountainous countryside, afforestation, especially of the formerly domesticated productive landscapes, is perceived particularly negatively by locals. Locals also associate abandonment, sometimes going as far as desolation, to demographic aging and to a voracious vegetation that swallows what human labor created, both theirs and that of their ancestors, along with their past, youth and property.

The latest point is because Greek law specified until recently that if former agricultural land, especially when it is owned under customary law, is afforested due to land abandonment, it was subject to a regime of “informal public ownership” and the owner lost the right of use, i.e. logging, clearing and cultivation, if they did not initiate a judicial procedure for the revalidation of their property rights (Damianakos et al. 1997). The issue has recently come to light again after the objection period during the process of ratifying forest maps, as often elderly citizens did not submit requests to correct the mistakes of the administration regarding “forested fields” and subsequently realized that their property was transferred to the Greek state, which had led to new amendments to forest legislation, but has not resolved the issue definitively.