The Most Important and Urgent Environmental Problems in Greece in the Last Decade (2000-2010) Athanasios Valavanidis and Thomais Vlachogianni Department of Chemistry, University of Athens, University Campus Zografou, 15784 Athens, Greece (
[email protected]) Abstract A comprehensive state of the Greek environment in the last decade is presented in this review as well as the most important and urgent environmental issues. Greece's major efforts in the last decades to achieve economic convergence with the other European Union countries and material prosperity for its citizens, resulted in the neglect of the environmental impact by tourism, construction, intensive agriculture, industrial development and rapid urbanization. Greece's environment faces some major environmental challenges, such as air emissions from transport and electricity power stations, overexploitation of its water resources, water pollution, degradation of its coastal zones, loss of biodiversity in terrestrial and marine ecosystems and increasing municipal and industrial waste. In the last decade major problems of management, funding and implementation of policies with strict environmental regulations have appeared in every aspect of environmental protection. Limited enforcement of environmental laws and practices and giving in to various demands of organized local interests has been the Achilles' heel of policy implementation. This situation resulted in the lack of clear strategies for the major environmental problems and the necessity for environmental reforms in many areas. Although funding and environmental taxes have been a major problem for Greece, corruption and malpractices by local authorities, private citizens and state institutions is another important issue. It is hoped that EU regulations and international obligations will force consultation and encouragement of public participation, as well as education and environmental information that will increase public awareness.