{"id":6282,"date":"2021-09-14T12:27:28","date_gmt":"2021-09-14T10:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/2021\/09\/14\/climate-care-not-green-development-blurred-notions-from-lands-in-transition\/"},"modified":"2025-04-23T17:09:56","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T15:09:56","slug":"climate-care-not-green-development-blurred-notions-from-lands-in-transition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/it\/2021\/09\/14\/climate-care-not-green-development-blurred-notions-from-lands-in-transition\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate Care, not Green Development.\u00a0Blurred Notions from Lands in Transition"},"content":{"rendered":"The contribution is triggered by the recent experience of immense forest fires that occurred in August 2021. It draws perspective and material from the ongoing doctoral research \u00abArcadia. Politics of land and nature at Greek peripheral landscapes.\u00bb<\/em>\n\n\n

Kinaros<\/h3>\nRinio is the only human inhabitant of Kinaros, taking care alone of the Aegean islet. It in return serves a crucial ecological role, hosting rare endemic biodiversity, migrating birds and sea life. Recently, Kinaros became a target for private investments. The operation concerned the installation of an industrial wind-turbine park, that would valorise \u00abuninhabited\u00bb islets, promoted and funded as a strategic EU project. Despite obvious evidences of life, care, and ecological fragility, \u00abgreen energy\u00bb was the main narrative behind the investment. (March 2021)\n\nKinaros is only one example of the unprecedent operation of land enclosure and privatisation currently taking place in Greece. Paradoxically, the trigger is environmental motives for energy investments. Yet, is this what we should truly understand as environmental protection or, are we rather witnessing a manipulation of narratives to enable urbanisation and speculation on common land and resources?\n

Arcadia<\/h3>\nOn the opposite end of Greece, Mount Mainalon in Arcadia still functions as forest commons. It offers water, grazing lands, harvests of many kinds, imaginaries and myths. The last decades, it has been progressively abandoned by state care and legal protection to allow \u00abstrategic environmental\u00bb investments. \u00abThere have been dozens of applications for investments in the forest\u00bb locals said, \u00abwater-dams, wind-turbines, photovoltaics. The scale is industrial. The location is random. There is no state planning, no environmental study. Companies can choose any piece of public land, apply, and receive EU funding. For wind-turbines they prefer the burnt parts. They are cheaper, they face less resistance\u00bb. I remember leaving Mainalon with a bad feeling: the forest was under extreme pressure, yet completely unprotected. (June 2021)\n\nIn August 2021, extended wildfires spread uncontrollably, devouring 1.200.000 acres of primal forest in Greece. The world talked about climate emergency, global warming and the inevitability of the \u00abplus 1.5\u00b0C\u00bb landscapes that now emerge. Yet, we are not quite sure: Was the heatwave the only cause or rather, the perfect excuse for a land transformation of gigantic scale endorsed by the inevitability of a \u00abclimatic crisis\u00bb?\n\nAs climatic narratives dangerously blur with aspirations for land claims and urban development, we cannot but doubt, looking cautiously where shapes of care between humans and non-humans do exist and where they are to be located, reading critically all lands in transition.\n\n\n
\n
\"Forest
Forest in Transition: Commons, Energy-Plants and Grazing \u00a9 Metaxia Markaki, ETH Zurich<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Agricultural
Agricultural Meadow \u00a9 Metaxia Markaki, ETH Zurich<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Grazing
Grazing Meadow \u00a9 Metaxia Markaki, ETH Zurich<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Bee
Bee hives \u00a9 Metaxia Markaki, ETH Zurich<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\u00ab54 Wind turbines to come\u00bb, Dobritsa peak \u00a9 Greek Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Burnt
Burnt Slopes, Dobritsa peak \u00a9 Metaxia Markaki, ETH Zurich<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Applications
Applications for Renewable Energy Plants \u00a9 Greek Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Wires,
Wires, Smoke and Grazing \u00a9 Metaxia Markaki, ETH Zurich<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Moving
Moving livestock \u00a9 Metaxia Markaki, ETH Zurich<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Grazing
Grazing highway \u00a9 Metaxia Markaki, ETH Zurich<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\nMetaxia Markaki<\/a> is an architect, currently pursuing her PhD at the ETH LUS Doctoral School and a research and teaching associate at the ETH chair of Architecture of Territory. Previously, she was involved in territorial research and teaching at ETH Studio Basel. She is a co-founding member of the collaborative project Landscape In-Between<\/a> and That Studio<\/a>.<\/em>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The contribution is triggered by the recent experience of immense forest fires that occurred in August 2021. It draws perspective and material from the ongoing doctoral research \u00abArcadia. Politics of land and nature at Greek peripheral landscapes.\u00bb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"departemente":[138,159,199],"newsletter_ausgabe":[304],"class_list":["post-6282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsletter-artikel","departemente-departement-architektur-d-arch","departemente-institut-fuer-landschaft-und-urbane-studien-lus","departemente-prof-milica-topalovic","newsletter_ausgabe-nl-51"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":23,"label":"Newsletter-Artikel"}],"departemente":[{"value":138,"label":"Departement Architektur (D-ARCH)"},{"value":159,"label":"Institut f\u00fcr Landschaft und Urbane Studien (LUS)"},{"value":199,"label":"Prof. Milica Topalovic"}],"newsletter_ausgabe":[{"value":304,"label":"NL 51"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Arcadia_Main-Image-1024x682.jpg",1024,682,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Yaxin Hou","author_link":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/it\/author\/houya\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":23,"name":"Newsletter-Artikel","slug":"newsletter-artikel","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":23,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":680,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":23,"category_count":680,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Newsletter-Artikel","category_nicename":"newsletter-artikel","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6283,"href":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6282\/revisions\/6283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6282"},{"taxonomy":"departemente","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/departemente?post=6282"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter_ausgabe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xoxo.capsule.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter_ausgabe?post=6282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}