A few months ago, I came across a Greek article that fascinated me. It concerned something I've explored in my new book about the deserted places of the Dodecanese: the fact that the islands were once self-sufficient and supported thousands, and the evidence of that way of life can be traced on the empty landscape today.
I took some Greek lessons in June and with my teacher’s help I started translating the article for my own interest. Then I realised the author was the director of Archipelagos, the Aegean-based Institute of Marine Conservation, which I’ve also mentioned briefly in the book.
The organisation agreed to let me post an extract from it here, and when the full piece is published in English I’ll add a link. I’m happy to say that here on Tilos, the situation is not as extreme as that described in the article, but Tsimpidis’ arguments are enlightening.
Wild Abandon: A Journey to the Deserted Places of the Dodecanese is being published in paperback in the UK on 1 September, to be distributed worldwide over the following months. Advance copies are available now on Tilos and by ordering direct from me. Thank you to anyone who’s already ordered it and to those who’ve already read and reviewed it!
Thodoris Tsimpidis
Have we ever asked ourselves how, within a few years, our islands were transformed from exemplary models of management and self-government to utterly dependent places, no longer productive, most without even drinkable water? It’s worth noting that in the old days, often ships did not stop at the islands for many weeks, a fact that had no negative effect on the availability of goods and the daily lives of the islanders.
Those of us who lived on the islands in the decades 1960 to 1970 and earlier, even if we were young at the time, experienced the end of a period of autonomy that for thousands of years had characterised the Aegean.
I remember how in my village, Raches in Ikaria, in every home people took care each season to store what they had produced so that they had something to live on in the following months, therefore giving them a form of self-sufficiency and independence.
The few things that the islanders did not produce, such as sugar, rice, coffee and the indispensable kerosene for lamps, were sourced from the few shops that existed with what little money they had at their disposal, or by means of exchange of goods. The ship from Piraeus would come to the island sporadically, whenever the weather conditions allowed, unloading not only few passengers but also few goods on the island, because the locals had little need for consumer goods.
Conversely, when the ship travelled towards Piraeus, usually they despatched many different types of local produce, either for sale or for relatives who lived in Athens and Piraeus.
For centuries, all the islands lived from what they produced themselves, not only for local consumption but also for export. The bigger islands, such as Lesbos, Chios and Samos, were for centuries important regions of production and export for all type of agricultural and animal products, with important small industrial units (e.g. tanneries and soap-makers).
Ikaria exported raisins, the famous kaisi (a type of apricot), almonds and many other agricultural products. Kythnos even up to the end of the 1970s produced the equally famous ‘Therma’ barley, which covered the entire production of the beer FIX, occupying through contract farming the majority of the island’s residents. Paros exported large quantities of wheat and Naxos exported potatoes, fruit and vegetables. Many islands exported also primary materials (e.g. charcoal, lime or mineral kaolite – the basic ingredient of porcelain).
There was equivalent production and export of different products on all the inhabited islands, while small trading boats travelled between the islands throughout the year to sell or to exchange products. The last trading boats remaining in the Aegean stopped their voyages around fifteen years ago.
In previous decades even the small islands had a plentiful supply of water. They made use of the springs and the groundwater, while there was also a system for collecting rainwater.
The question, then, is this: How in the space of 40-50 years we managed to go from complete autonomy to complete dependence, disdaining a wise system of management which should have become a teaching model in all the environmental schools on the planet?
Many times we search for the causes in financial interests, but I fear that in this case the cause of this loss is not only financial interest. The state of the islands today reflects not only the policies of the previous years but also the displacement of the political persons who were chosen to manage that unique place. And in doing so they devalued the culture of management. The only thing which they had to recommend and apply was to transform the islands into a monoculture of tourism, which gave the final blow to the culture of self-sufficiency and wise management of the natural resources.
Most of the cultivated lands were deserted and replaced by small and large tourist units. The systems for preventing erosion on the islands were abandoned, increasing the incidence of erosion on most of the islands. Thus, along with the fertile soil of the islands, the groundwater is also lost.
The traditional method of raising animals was also destroyed, which incorporated through experience the understanding and knowledge of how many cattle should graze in an area, in which seasons and when they should transfer the animals elsewhere to avoid the negative consequences of over-grazing.
These were not ecological practices but based on common sense, the knowledge and experience of many years (which today we place no value on) and naturally on the necessity of survival. They did not exhaust nature because they knew that they would be harming themselves in the end. The remains of this traditional method of raising animals we see even today on all the islands, with the dry-stone walls and the stone pathways which they used to divide up the grazing areas.
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