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It’s a beautiful piece of rock, the
most formidable in the Cretan Sea, and it belongs to the Gouves Township.
Occasionally, people – private
entrepreneurs, the Iraklion Port Authority – forget that fact, and come up
with one grand design or another for Dia Island.
However, anyone making a grab for
Dia will have their hand quickly slapped away by the Gouves municipality.
It’s ours,
they say, and we’ll decide what happens
to Dia Island in the
future.
The mystical island of Dia, named
after the God Zeus, whose name in Greek is Dias, is situated 12 kilometres
off the Gouves coastline – and it is five kilometres long and three
kilometres in width, at its widest point, with steep cliffs covered with
phrygana and other scrub. Some 5,000 years ago Dia was covered with woods
and rivers, and was considered a literal paradise. It’s the place where
Theseus eloped for a honeymoon with Ariadne, daughter of Minos, after he had
killed the Minotaur.
Dia then suffered from what can only
be described as an ecology lesson from antiquity.
A millennium later, it was
progressively deforested to build or repair ships, and provide cooking fires
for the many homes throughout the island.
Then, 500 years later, an explosion
on the volcanic island now known as Santorini, sent a 300-foot tidal wave
hurtling over the island, leaving a desolate rock in its wake.
Presently, there’s a serious
vegetation problem on Dia, due to the fact it’s been over-grazed for the
last 50 years, firstly by domestic goats and, after 1955, by Cretan ‘agrimi’
(Kri-kri). During the last five years efforts have been made by the Forestry
Department to remove all the goats and then reintroduce the Kri-kri when the
vegetation has recovered.
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Monk seals are
often seen in its surrounding waters, and it is an important site for
breeding sea birds and species of animals associated with coastal cliffs.
The Eleanora falcon, which is a rare bird of prey, migrates all the way from
Madagascar to breed.
Other than the goats and birds, Dia
is still desolate, except for a church, which can be seen from our coast on
clear days, a shelter for fishermen who get stranded by the bad weather and
a taverna for the daily boat trips for the tourists.
As noted before, there is increased
interest by businessmen for future development of Dia, but that doesn’t seem
to be a reality.
“That will never happen,” Mrs.
Vasiliki Alexaki-Hronaki, president of the Gournes Development and
Environment Association, said without hesitation. “Dia can only be used for
environmental purposes.”
Mrs. Alexaki-Hronaki said she would
like to see Dia Island turned into a centre for the sheltering of wounded
wild animals and birds, like the one presently in Aegina, where over 2000
injured wild birds and animals arrive each year to be treated and then
liberated.
“Dia Island can accommodate such a
centre,” she explained, “as it also has the capabilities of supporting the
animals which can no longer fend for themselves. What an ecosystem paradise
that would be.”
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