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Resin farmers say they feel helpless as entire villages dependent on the industry suffer from the effects of wildfires.
Evia, Greece – As Greece comes to terms with the devastation of fires that have burned tens of thousands of acres of land and destroyed entire villages, resin farmers on the island of Evia, one of the worst affected regions, are beginning to count the cost to their livelihoods.
When Al Jazeera met some of the farmers this week near the village of Ellinika in northern Evia, they were sleeping in shifts at the foot of the forest, as they had been doing for days to desperately protect the few remaining trees.
“I have 5,000 trees and they are all burned, I don’t know what I’m going to do next,” said Kostas, 33.
Born and raised in one of the island’s northern villages, he said all the other resin farmers now faced the same grim reality.
“Maybe I will have to leave the island to go to Athens, I don’t know,” he said as he watched smoke emerging from the forest. “It’s all gone.”
The fires have come in the middle of the resin harvesting season, known as tapping, for resin.
