Our environment

Written by Argiro Peraki
Dimitris Tsatsaronis
Mihalis Karapatakis
Dimitris Karazepounis
6th grade students

What do we mean by saying “environment”? All the natural, chemical and biological conditions under which any creature is able to live, compose the term environment. All these factors impact in every living being's life. Such examples are the light, humidity, pressure, temperature, nutrition etc. Man has managed, up to a degree, to effect on his natural environment and therefore create conditions, good or bad, for the progression or the destruction of life upon earth. Mostly, he has shown very little respect to what consists his natural environment and the creatures that inhabit in it. Many species have been extinguished because of his activities. He managed to extinguish animals such as the “primeval ox” and many birds like the “moa” that used to live upon earth 200-300 years ago. During our century his interventions in order to exploit the environment (logging, killing animals for their skin) are thoughtlessly multiplied. There was for many years and will always be skepticism on environmental issues.
1. Noise pollution, which is caused by various machines (airplanes, cars, motorbikes).
2. Air pollution. The atmosphere wasn't polluted 150 years ago so people were able to breath fresh and unpolluted air. This was until the human race started to build factories. These factories in addition with the cars release great amounts of harmful gases that poison our air. Cars and generally transport mediums are the number 1 factor of air pollution on earth. Today some cities are so polluted that it is almost dangerous to breath the air that surrounds them. They are covered with a thick poisonous fog, called smog, that hides the beautiful blue sky and instead you can see a brown ugly one.
3. Sea pollution. Responsible are factories that release their waste products in rivers and seas, oil tanks and coast ships that throw oil in the sea and kill many sea creatures. A lovely poem written by a young child from Malta describes this situation elegantly.
I saw the mermaids
Crawling out of the sea
Because they couldn't
Any more live down there

They said of terrible stories
About what is happening down there
About scenes they witnessed
And couldn't stand more

They said of the black cloud
That spread high in the sky
And about the black rain
That ripped down hard

They also saw huge nets
Bringing terror in depth
Catching everything
From big to small, tiny fish

Greece occupies the southern edge of the Balkan Peninsula and is located in the eastern part of the Mediterranean. It has got an area of 132,000km2 and the total length of its coast is about 16,000km. Generally our country's weather is Mediterranean which means mild summers and winters. The mountainous character and diverse distribution of its soil, the presence of 42 peaks over 2000m and the numerous islands, contribute to its bas-relief depiction. All these conditions have led to the formation of a variety of natural environments in which many scarce plants and animals inhabit. Greece's fauna has many Iran-Caspian, Mediterranean and Euro-Mediterranean species. It is noteworthy that only in the Iberian Peninsula you can meet such biodiversity. Plants so different like the palm tree of Vai in Crete that inhabit in semi-deserted conditions, or the red fir trees and the pine trees, which inhabit in dry, cold conditions are met in the region. Unfortunately the wealth of our national and traditional heritage hasn't been efficiently inquired, evaluated and indexed to date. There are, of course, many surveys but without cohesion. So because of all these and mainly because of the danger that many species will be extinct and therefore many natural ecotypes might be vitiated, led to the declaration of Rio in 1992 and the 92/43 direction of E.U. The aim of this direction was to protect natural sites throughout Europe and to conserve the biodiversity, which they support. The basic instrument for this action was the creation of a protection areas network, known as “natura 2000”, in which each country would integrate natural sites of significant environmental importance. The natural sites were proposed by the member states and they were held under a special administration. This network would become the spinal cord not only for the conservation of the biodiversity but also for the protection of the natural environment in general. Many areas of our prefecture were integrated in this network such as the Agia Wetland, Gramvousa Island, Elafonisos, Samaria Gorge etc.
We who live in this planet and see all these horrible things, propose to fight keep our environment clean, to respect the animals and the plants. Don't kill them for their skin or anything else. People who own cars and motorbikes should have them serviced properly; even more eliminate their use. Finally we, the children should take action in order to raise concern about our planet's future.

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