Article by Nicolas Jarraud

Biodiversity flourishes in Cyprus’s no man’s land

No one has lived in the hillside of Variseia since 1974. Nestled in the no man’s land dividing Cyprus between the Greek Cypriots living mainly in the southern part of the island and the Turkish Cypriots living mainly in the north, it has been abondoned to the elements and its stone walls are crumbling. But the village now hosts a very different type of inhabitant: the island’s largest wild mammal, the endemic Cyprus mouflon, of which a little over 3,000 remain, is now regularly encountered in the area.

The buffer zone, which in its present form was created in 1974 following the conflict on this small Mediterranean island, is strewn with minefields, patrolled by U.N. peace-keepers, and heavily guarded on either side by armed forces. Winding across Cyprus and dividing the capital, Nicosia, the buffer zone covers nearly 3 percent of the island, and is more than four miles wide in some places.

Has Cyprus’s demilitarized buffer zone become an unexpected wildlife sanctuary? This is what experts from the Greek – and Turkish-Cypriot communities have set out to discover in an unprecedented effort at multi-disciplinary scientific cooperation. There have been some ad hoc bi-communal scientific projects in the past, but this is the first time in over 30 years that such a wide-ranging attempt at evaluating the flora and fauna of the buffer zone has been undertaken. This effort may find evidence of endemic plant species such as the Tulipa cypria (Cyprus tulip) and the Ophrys kotschyi (Kotschyi’s orchid), as well as the fresh water terrapin (turtle). The buffer zone may also have protected plants and wildlife from the effects of the massive housing and tourism developments all over the island, which have threatened important habitats. According to ornithologist Iris Charalambidou, bird species such as the stone curlew are facing serious habitat loss outside of the buffer zone. If these birds have managed to establish breeding populations within the buffer zone, this could help secure their future on the island.

Salih Gücel, a Turkish Cypriot botanist who created the 14-member biodiversity team, explained that scientists from the two communities are working well together. “It’s going very well with our Greek Cypriot colleagues. We are all scientists and are all very curious. Everyone is very interested in this project so we don’t have problems”. Beyond acquiring biodiversity data, the project aims to show that the universal values of science, and a shared concern for the natural environment, can be important tools for peace-building, perhaps turning the buffer zone from a symbol of division into a symbol of hope for Cyprus.

Conflict and the environment

There are four possible conceptual relationships between the environment and conflict: the environment can serve as a bridge for building cooperation and trust in post-conflict situations; it can itself be a source of conflict, as in Sudan;[1] as well as a victim of conflict, as in the case of depleted uranium in the former Yugoslavia.[2] Sensitive habitats can sometimes be unintentionally preserved through prolonged reductions in socio-economic activities in post-conflict areas. In Cyprus, all four possibilities are present.

The environment serving as a peace-building tool is not new. The United Nations Environment Programme’s Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch, for example, has secured transboundary cooperation on pressing environmental issues between Israelis and Palestinians. UNDP’s support for bi-communal environmental projects in Cyprus goes back to 1998 (reforestation, organic farming, waste management), and the realization that the different communities on this small island are unable to resolve common environmental problems by themselves.

Environmental programming to reinforce inter-community cooperation in Cyprus has occured in stages. The first stage, until the late 1990s, saw the implementation of ‘parallel projects’, in which Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot experts worked in parallel on the same environmental issues, but worked independently and rarely met (this occured with efforts to eradicate various animal diseases on the island, such as Brucellosis and Echinococcosis). The opening of crossing points through the buffer zone in 2003 set the stage for the second phase – cooperative projects – whereby Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot experts worked independently but met regularly to coordinate their efforts on projects of common interest.

In the third phase, which began in 2005, emphasis shifted to the implementation of projects, run by bi-communal teams working together rather than independently. The biodiversity survey mentioned above is an example of this approach; another example is the creation of specialized networks, such as the Madison Dairy Advisory Group (MADAG[3]), the Cyprus Organics Advisory Group (COAG[4]), or, more recently, the Emergency Disease Forum (EDF) and the Cyprus Environmental Stakeholder Forum (CESF). These island-wide networks specialize in improving the dairy sector, promoting organic farming, dialogue on pandemic preparedness, and civil society environmental advocacy, respectively. As these groups and networks created by UNDP mature, it is hoped that they will move environmental cooperation to a fourth phase – of continous dialogue and coordination.

Of course, the island’s division does have negative environmental effects. The effective suspension of the EU’s environmental acquis in the Turkish Cypriot community[5] entails serious divergences in environmental standards, particularly regarding environmental impact assessments, cooperate environmental responsibility, urban planning, and the establishment of conservation areas. The recent tourism and housing boom in the Turkish Cypriot community has resulted in habitat loss, increased quarrying activities, and growing sanitation problems. Similarly, weak technical cooperation between the two communities on environmental issues raises risks of wildfires in the buffer zone, as well as pandemic outbreaks.

Buffer zones and biodiversity

It is against this background that Cyprus’s buffer zone has become a de facto environmental sanctuary. Similar situations can be found in other post-conflict settings, where the conflict aftermath produced a ‘no man’s land’. The demilitarized zone between North and South Korea over the last five decades has become a sanctuary for some endangered species.[6] Indeed, since 1974, some parts of the buffer zone in Cyprus are patrolled only by United Nations peacekeepers, whilst other parts are farmed but no new constructions are allowed. Hunting is forbidden in the buffer zone, which should further help protect endangered species. However, the biodiversity team (with the help of the Cyprus Game Fund) regularly uncovers evidence of hunting and illegal bird trapping in the buffer zone. Moreover, in the areas reserved for farming, the team often comes across illegal rubbish tips and containers for dangerous pesticides which are presumably dumped by nearby communities.

Even if rare endemic species are found to have survived in the buffer zone, without a serious dialogue with local communities, there is little hope that they would survive once the island is reunited. That is why, in a parallel project, a bi-communal team of scientists supported by UNDP is working with local villagers in Mammari (which lies on the edge of the buffer zone) to set up plant micro-reserves around sites where endemic orchids and tulips are believed to exist. This type of local dialogue is essential, especially on an island where biodiversity is not seen as a major concern. In fact, Cypriots were at the bottom of the list in a recent EU survey on attitudes towards biodiversity: 84 percent of respondents said they had never come across the concept.[7]

UNDP’s biodiversity project has therefore been integrated within the Cyprus Environmental Stakeholder Forum (CESF), a bi-communal network of specialists in various fields of environmental protection. The CESF was launched in 2007 by UNDP in cooperation with the Union of the Chambers of Cyprus Turkish Engineers and Architects (KTMMOB) and the Cyprus Technical Chamber (ETEK). The CESF seeks to create an island-wide network of environmental experts, strongly rooted in the local environmental civil society movement, and aimed at evidence-based environmental advocacy of common priorities for the island. By targeting the public and key decision-makers locally and abroad, the CESF hopes to have significant impact in the coming years, helping more Cypriots to work together, at least on environmental issues.

Nobody knows what the future will hold for the buffer zone’s flora and fauna, or whether it might be one day transformed into a peace park[8] or wildlife corridor. For now though, the work of the biodiversity team is providing, for the first time in 34 years,  a wealth of knowledge on what species do exist within the Green Line, and offer the CESF and the environmental community at large the tools for recommending the best course of action for the buffer zone. The work of the team may have given scientists and environmentalists a taste for cooperation, no matter how or when the Cyprus Question is finally resolved.

Nicolas Jarraud is an Environmental Analyst for UNDP’s Action for Cooperation and Trust in Cyprus.

This article was taken from the Regional Bureau for Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States’s e-bulletin titled “Development and Transition”, April issue.

To read the complete version Development and Transition, please visit www.developmentandtransition.net

[1] UNEP, 2007. Sudan: Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment. http://www.unep.org/sudan/.

[2] UNEP, 2001. Depleted Uranium in Kosovo – Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment. http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/uranium.pdf

[3] www.madag.info.

[4] www.cyprusorganics.info.

[5] In accordance with Article 1 of Protocol No. 10 of the Act of Accession, which was signed in 2004.

[6] Kim, K.C. 1997. ‘Preserving biodiversity in Korea’s demilitarized zone’. Science, 278: 5336, pp. 242-243.

[7] Christou, J. 2008. ‘Biodiversity, what’s that?’, Cyprus Mail, 23 January 2008, p. 5.

[8] For more information about the concept of peace parks, one can visit the website of the peace parks foundation: www.peaceparks.org – they have catalysed efforts to ease international or local disputes through transboundary conservation efforts.