For those of us not experiencing them firsthand, wildfires increasingly unfold through a continuous stream of images circulating across television broadcasts, news websites, social-media platforms, live feeds and mobile-phone screens.[FIGURE 01: Images of fires] Over the past two decades, “a planet on fire” has become a familiar refrain during longer and more intense fire seasons. Images of people trying to save their homes, fleeing affected areas, or watching their livelihoods turn to ash remain central to media coverage, even as drone footage and satellite imagery increasingly offer a distant, “God’s-eye view” of landscapes on fire or already burnt.

Greece is part of the wider Mediterranean Basin, where exposure to extreme fire-weather conditions has increased over recent decades as a result of climate change¹. In Greece, the numerous, extensive and frequent fires of recent years have attracted sustained national and international attention throughout the summer months. This burning interest, along with emotional debates about the fires’ impact, heated discussions about the fire brigade’s insufficient resources, inadequate state measures for fire prevention and possible causes of ignition and news reports about possible suspects of arson, usually blows over as soon as August ends and the majority of us abandon the countryside and the periphery yet again, fleeing towards Athens and other city centres to resume our hectic urban lifestyles. Once the fire season subsides, reporting becomes more fragmented, shifting towards post-fire restoration, emergency state measures, community support, and corporate relief initiatives. What receives far less sustained scrutiny are the legislative and policy changes introduced in the aftermath of major fires, and the ways these changes reshape land use, land management and, increasingly, forest governance.

The importance of this omission becomes clearer if we acknowledge that fire regimes² are shaped not only by climatic conditions but also by transformations in how land is used, managed and regulated. The environmental, social and economic effects of fires therefore cannot be disconnected from their political effects. This investigative report, presented through this online platform, treats large fires as “agents”, insofar as they become consequential events through which policy change can be justified, accelerated or reframed. In this sense, large fires do not only abruptly and drastically transform the natural landscapes they sweep through; they can also contribute to transforming the legal and administrative frameworks through which those landscapes are governed. Measures introduced in response to one fire season may, in turn, influence land management, prevention practices and forest governance in the seasons that follow. It is through this lens that this investigative report asks two related questions: what can be gained by monitoring policy and legislative changes in the aftermath of fires, and how can making administrative registries legible help trace changes in land management practices and their implications for fire regimes? The report examines these questions through the case of Greece, focusing on the period from 2018 onwards.

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1. Matthew W. Jones et al., “Global and Regional Trends and Drivers of Fire Under Climate Change,” Reviews of Geophysics 60, no. 3 (2022): e2020RG000726, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020RG000726
2. A fire regime describes the recurring patterns of fire within a landscape over time, including their frequency, seasonality, intensity or severity, size, spatial distribution and type. Rather than describing any single fire, it describes patterns produced through repeated fires and their interactions with climate, vegetation, land use, ignition and human intervention. See David M. J. S. Bowman et al., “The Human Dimension of Fire Regimes on Earth,” Journal of Biogeography 38, no. 12 (2011): 2225; Leda N. Kobziar et al., “Principles of Fire Ecology,” Fire Ecology 20 (2024): 39.

[FIGURE 02: Fires in 2007]The fires that swept southern Greece in the summer of 2007, particularly the Peloponnese and Evia, burned vast areas of forest and agricultural land and caused 85 deaths. The fires of 2007 stand out as a major extreme-fire year in Greece’s recent wildfire history, marked by an exceptional concentration of large and destructive fires. Recent analyses place them within an emerging shift towards increasing fire severity and the recurrence of very large fires³.

[FIGURE 03: Fires in 2018] Their deadly toll was surpassed in 2018 by the fire in Mati, in eastern Attica, where 104 people lost their lives. In the aftermath of this fire, among the main points of heated public debate, was the lack of organised procedures for early evacuation processes of the settlements in the proximity of the fire. During this period of highly politicised debates regarding responsibility for the impact of the fire, the newly elected government of New Democracy inaugurated the pilot use of the outbound, alerting component of the 112 Emergency Communications Service in August 2019⁴. During the COVID-19 lockdowns that followed, the 112 emergency alerts were used as a means of state communication, but it was during the fire season of 2021 their deployment was intensified even more.

[FIGURE 04: 112 emergency alerts] The 2021 fire season was the first one during which 112 emergency alerts were used for informing citizens regarding fires in their proximity and for giving direct instructions of evacuations in settlements close to ongoing fires. During that season, approximately 125,000 hectares of forest and agricultural land were burned, more than 50,000 of them in North Evia alone. Informal conversations during field visits to the fire-affected settlements of Agia Anna, Kechries, Limni, and other villages in North Evia suggested that the intensified use of these alerts significantly shaped local responses, particularly during the first of the ten consecutive days in which the fire spread across the northern part of the island. People I spoke with across the area consistently described limited firefighting capacity, an apparent lack of an organised intervention plan, and a poorly coordinated evacuation process⁵. Although both the 112 messages and police instructions directed people towards designated destinations, in several cases the routes available to evacuees passed through areas where the fire was already active.

While the fires in North Evia were still ongoing, this state of emergency was being translated into ‘an opportunity’ for the future development of the region. [FIGURE 05: Press conference] During a press conference the Prime Minister announced a targeted reconstruction programme for North Evia, orally assigning its development to the NGO Diazoma and its president Stavros Benos along with a key legislative change concerning the incorporation of the private sector in post fire restoration.

For the reconstruction programme in North Evia, a Special Committee was formed chaired by Mr. Benos, composed partly of Diazoma members, and supplemented by scientists and consultants selected by Mr. Benos himself. Through the vision included in the Masterplan study and its 13 accompanying studies, each funded by an individual sponsor, the programme set out provisions for infrastructure, environmental restoration, agriculture and the local food economy, education and employment, health and welfare, tourism and cultural heritage — directives, in effect, for reorganising the area’s production model, its character, and its future marketing as a tourist destination. As the Chamber for the Environment and Sustainability put it before the Hellenic Parliament’s Special Permanent Committee on Environmental Protection, the programme had the characteristics of a new spatial plan for North Evia, extending beyond the general principles of spatial and regional planning into urban planning itself. What was presented as a programme for post-fire recovery developed into a comprehensive spatial and urban-planning project, in which the language of urgency legitimised speed, exceptional procedures and the mobilisation of private-sector actors, even where the programme’s content exceeded the logic of emergency response.

After the completion of the studies, most of the projects they proposed, were incorporated into the Integrated Territorial Investment⁶ scheme for North Evia. [FIGURE 06: Special Urban Plan -land use maps] Importantly, two of the fourteen donated studies were Special Urban Plans⁷ for the municipalities of Mantoudi–Limni–Agia Anna and Istiaia–Aidipsos. The fire affected both municipalities but neither in its entirety; the plans were nevertheless drafted for the full territorial extent of both. The plan for Mantoudi–Limni–Agia Anna was presented by the team responsible for its design with a dual mandate: to address the aftermath of the wildfire and mitigate subsequent risks such as floods, and to complete first-level urban planning across the whole municipality, citing the lack or inadequacy of existing planning⁸. Yet by the time of the fires, the municipal unit of Limni already had a General Urban Plan approved in 2020, and those of Kireas and Nileas had plans in the final stages of authorisation. Special Urban Plans carry greater regulatory weight and can override the provisions of General Urban Plans; even ones that, as here, had gone through years of revision, conflict mediation and negotiation with local stakeholders.

Nearly five years after the fires, neither of these two plans is in effect. In the case of the municipality of Istiaia–Aidipsos, while the donated plan was submitted to the Ministry of Environment and the competent authorities for review after Phase A of its design was completed, a Local Urban Plan covering the same boundaries was initiated, under the Technical Chamber’s “Konstantinos Doxiadis” programme. The latter is the one that is currently in Phase A of the main study, having advanced to the evaluation and consultation stage, while the donated Special Urban Plan was not put into use⁹. In the case of the Special Urban Plan for the municipality of Mantoudi–Limni–Agia Anna, although the municipal council formally accepted the final study in July 2025 (decision 126/2025), in early 2026, residents of the area applied to the Council of State for the annulment of that acceptance, contesting the legality of the Plan being assigned to, and prepared by, non-state bodies.

The residents’ recourse to the Council of State raises the same question posed by Maria Karamanof, president of the Chamber for the Environment and Sustainability: on what legal basis was the planning of a region assigned to a private committee? Under the Greek Constitution, spatial planning falls under state authority. Private expertise may be used, but through legally prescribed tendering procedures intended to safeguard transparency and public accountability. Karamanof also stresses that a donated spatial plan cannot be understood as a neutral gift as it already contains the substance of a future administrative decision¹⁰. The issue, therefore, is not private participation alone, but the displacement of public authority and procedure, raising questions of legitimacy, environmental protection and the public interest.

The scheme of the restoration and reforestation contractor, which was announced by the Prime Minister on 12 August 2021 alongside the reconstruction programme for North Evia, was enacted through an emergency legislative act the following day. Less than three weeks later, it was ratified by Parliament through Law 4824/2021.[FIGURE 07: reforestation sponsor image-media] The new provision was added to the general legislation on forest management and protection (Law 998/1979). It allows any organisation, public or private, whether for-profit or non-profit, to be designated as a contractor for the restoration and reforestation of burnt public forests and forested areas that have been declared reforestable, or that meet the conditions to be so declared.

Although ownership and legal rights remain with the state, and contractors are required to act under the supervision of and in collaboration with the Forest Service, key functions of post-fire restoration, including its financing, the preparation of studies and the execution of works, can now be undertaken by non-state actors. In this sense, the legislation created a legal framework for the extensive outsourcing of post-disaster environmental governance. It also opened public forest restoration to a model of corporate sponsorship, in which private actors could finance and carry out works in state-owned forests while becoming publicly associated with their restoration or reforestation.

[FIGURE 08: reforestation sponsor image-sponsor] Restoration could therefore generate reputational value for companies and become part of their corporate social responsibility strategies, particularly in the immediate aftermath of extensive and destructive fires, when public attention is most intense. For companies whose wider activities are themselves associated with significant environmental impacts, such as ΔΕΗ and TERNA, which, according to the data presented on this website, rank among the most prominent restoration sponsors, the contradiction is difficult to overlook. Corporations associated with environmental degradation can simultaneously become associated with the restoration of fire-affected landscapes. The scheme therefore not only redistributes post-fire restoration works to private actors, but also reconfigures who gains visibility and political value through the process of environmental restoration.

Alongside the new framework for privately financed forest restoration, legislation adopted after the 2021 fires also changed how publicly funded forest works could be awarded. In October 2021, Article 74 of Law 4843/2021 introduced a special procurement regime for urgent works to control erosion and flooding in areas that had been affected by extensive fires or floods and had been declared under a state of emergency. It allowed contracting authorities to use either direct award below the applicable EU procurement thresholds or negotiation without prior publication in conditions of extreme urgency. In either case, the award procedure was to be completed within ten days of the invitation¹¹.

Only two months later, Article 76 of Law 4876/2021 extended the same procedures beyond emergency intervention to forestry works more broadly. They now covered studies and support services, forest clearing, and the maintenance of forest roads and firebreaks, while the provision also removed the ordinary annual aggregate limit on such direct awards¹². Exceptional procedures introduced for emergency recovery were, in other words, made available for recurring types of works in forest management. For forestry works funded by the state, the change was substantial: the ordinary €60,000 ceiling for direct award was replaced under this special regime by the applicable EU threshold — €5.35 million at the time¹³. This was the procurement framework available when antinero programme began to operate at a national scale in 2022.

[FIGURE 09: antinero image] The antinero programme is the multiannual programme, first introduced by the Ministry of Environment and Energy on 8 July 2022 for forest fire prevention and forest protection. It was incorporated into Greece’s Recovery and Resilience Plan under Measure 16849 and was due to conclude on 31 August 2026 ¹⁴.

The financial framework within which the programme was developed predates the programme itself. Greece submitted its Recovery and Resilience Plan to the European Commission on 27 April 2021, with Measure 16849 conceived as the National Reforestation Plan and financed through the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility, within the wider policy context of the European Green Deal. Shortly after, on 16 July 2021, the EU Forest Strategy for 2030 was adopted by the European Commission, with the announced aim of protecting, restoring and sustainably managing EU forests while enhancing their resilience, biodiversity, climate contribution, and support for rural economies and the sustainable forest-based bioeconomy.

After the fires of August 2021, the scope of Measure 16849 was enlarged to incorporate antinero, bringing reforestation together with fire-prevention and forest-protection works and, later, anti-erosion and flood-protection measures. This chronology shows that Measure 16849, as later expanded to incorporate antinero, was not initially designed as an implementing instrument of the EU Forest Strategy. Nevertheless, as its scope expanded, its objectives closely aligned with the Strategy’s announced emphasis on the restoration of degraded forest ecosystems, resilience and preventive forest management. [FIGURE 10: types of work graph] The initial interventions of the programme included forest clearings, pruning and thinning, biomass removal, and the maintenance or opening of forest roads and firebreaks. Later phases added fire-prevention planning, mixed fuel breaks, forest nurseries, reforestation studies and works, and post-fire erosion and flood protection.

Despite having been celebrated by the Ministry as the ‘the most extensive forest fire prevention ever designed and implemented in the country ¹⁵, the programme’s environmental effects have been strongly contested by forest scientists and environmental organisations. They argue that large-scale interventions have been implemented through relatively uniform technical specifications without sufficient assessment of local ecological conditions, including within Natura 2000 sites. Concerns have also been raised about intensive understorey removal, disturbance to biodiversity and the timing of works during breeding periods and the summer fire season ¹⁶. The critique extends beyond the ecological effects of the interventions themselves to the legal framework through which they are authorised. The works are treated as special forestry works¹⁷ and it is argued that this specific framework allows interventions carried out across extensive areas of the country’s public forests to be treated as individual forestry works rather than being subject to broader environmental assessment¹⁸.

Antinero was subsequently raised at EU level through a written parliamentary question submitted to the European Commission in 2024. In its reply, the Commission stated that primary responsibility for applying and enforcing EU environmental law rests with the Greek authorities. It also noted that, where works in or near Natura 2000 sites are likely to have significant effects, the Greek authorities must determine whether an appropriate assessment is required under the Habitats Directive¹⁹. The issue returned to the European Parliament following a petition submitted by the Chamber of Environment and Sustainability together with 212 organisations, collectives and citizens. The petition was declared admissible by the Committee on Petitions and remained open following its consideration. The Commission subsequently stated that it would seek further information from the Greek authorities, including on the exemption of antinero works from environmental licensing requirements²⁰.

[FIGURE 11: fires in Evros] In August 2023, fires that broke out near Alexandroupolis and Dadia merged into a blaze that burned for more than two weeks and consumed over 96,000 hectares, becoming the largest wildfire recorded in the Europe since the 1980s²¹. Twenty people were killed, most of them migrants travelling through the border region. Even as migrants constituted most of the fire’s victims, subsequent analysis of Greek media coverage found migrant blame to be the dominant narrative among reports assigning responsibility for the fires²². The post-fire response in Evros drew on arrangements and actors already involved in the recovery of North Evia. The reconstruction effort brought back key figures from that process. Christos Triantopoulos, who had coordinated the government’s recovery measures in North Evia, chaired the new committee, while Stavros Benos, who had led the Diazoma-based reconstruction initiative there, joined as a member.

Urgent anti-erosion and flood-protection works were channelled largely through the antinero programme and awarded through accelerated procurement procedures. The Evros post-fire restoration works illustrates how emergency procurement was used within this expanded remit. For a package of flood-protection works with a total budget of approximately €50 million, the contracting authority invoked Article 32, paragraph 2(c), of Law 4412/2016, which allows a negotiated procedure without prior publication where unforeseeable events create extreme urgency. Five economic operators were invited to participate²³. The use of this procedure was challenged before the Court of Audit. In Decision 1379/2024, concerning one of the four contracts, the Court’s Seventh Chamber found that the conditions for dispensing with ordinary competitive procedures had not been met. It held that the works formed part of an extensive and longer-term flood-protection intervention and therefore went beyond what could be considered strictly necessary to respond to an immediate emergency. Similar decisions were issued for the other three contracts. The decisions were subsequently overturned by the Court’s Smaller Plenary, and the four contracts were signed in January 2025²⁴. Further scrutiny of the programme’s procurement later resulted in a €29.94 million financial correction concerning contracts awarded in 2022–23, after they were found to have been artificially divided across separate procurement procedures. The Ministry has challenged the decision, and its execution remains suspended pending judicial review²⁵.

[FIGURE 12: protest against hybrid schemes] The final legislative reform traced here came in May 2024 and extends beyond post fire restoration and prevention programmes to the broader governance of public forests. Law 5106/2024 introduced Hybrid Cooperative Schemes, in which forest workers’ cooperatives collectively hold 50% and private actors the remaining 50%, and created a new route through which these schemes, alongside forest workers’ cooperatives acting independently, can undertake the management and exploitation of designated public forests. The framework ties forest management more directly to the extraction and sale of biomass and to an annual public subsidy, while the award procedure gives greatest weight to the quantity of biomass a bidder commits to remove and the speed with which the works will be completed. Although the two sides of a Hybrid Scheme are formally equal, they enter it from markedly different positions. Private companies must meet substantial financial requirements, while forest workers’ cooperatives may contribute machinery and the labour of their members as capital. The law has been strongly opposed by forest workers’ cooperatives, whose representatives have warned that it strengthens the position of large private companies in the management of public forests²⁶. Although the framework is already in force, no Hybrid Cooperative Scheme was identified as operating during this research, so its effects in practice cannot yet be assessed. The law nevertheless already changes the terms under which access to public forest management is organised, creating the conditions for forest workers’ cooperatives to become increasingly dependent on private partners and weakening their capacity to determine the terms of their own work.

[FIGURE 13: fires in Evia] Taken together, the changes traced above redraw the terms on which work in Greece’s public forests is commissioned, financed and carried out. What is at stake in these arrangements is not only the amount of public funding provided for fire prevention or post-fire restoration, but also who is authorised to intervene in public forests, whose knowledge and labour shape those interventions, and under what temporal, financial and technical conditions the forestry works are executed. Records of forestry works can therefore be read as a trace of these changing relations. In the context described at the beginning, where fire is experienced as an event and mediated almost as a spectacle, the institutional arrangements made during and after it persist long after the flames and the attention surrounding them have receded, shaping how forests are managed before the next fire season.

This research therefore asks how the mechanisms introduced since 2021 have changed who receives forestry work in Greece’s public forests, through which procedures, and on what terms. It approaches this question by reading the legislation presented here alongside three sets of records, the designation acts of restoration and reforestation contractors, the contracts of the antinero programme, and contracts awarded directly to forest workers’ cooperatives over the same period. Organising and juxtaposing these dispersed records makes visible what successive governmental announcements of funding for forest restoration and reforestation, or fragmented media coverage of post-fire restoration, do not. It begins to trace the different rhythms of procurement, the actors that prevail across different regions and types of work, and allows a comparison of how access to public forests is distributed through publicly funded forestry works.

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3. Kostas Kalabokidis et al., “Can Greece Solve Its Wildfire Problem?,” GeoHazards 7, no. 2 (2026): 55, https://doi.org/10.3390/geohazards7020055
4. More specifically, the focus is the outbound part of the 112 Emergency Communications Service in Greece, which is used for transmitting emergency messages, free of charge, to personal mobile phones located within a particular geographical area in cases of dangerous phenomena or events. According to current legislation, the 112 emergency alerts are a direct means of informing citizens and they are part of the broader European framework on public warning systems. For a more extensive account regarding the use of 112 emergency alerts see Elpida Giannakou, “Between Emergency, Necessity, Control and Blame Avoidance: The Use of Emergency Alerts during 2020–2021 in Greece” (Critical Conditions essay, MA Research Architecture, 2025–2026).
5. These conversations took place during field visits in February and April and were largely informal, reflecting my pre-existing personal and familial familiarity with the area. This familiarity facilitated conversations with people already known to me or through local connections, alongside others involved in forestry and forest-related work. All participants were informed that I was conducting research for this MA project and gave oral consent for their anonymised accounts and observations to inform the research. I intend to return to the area to discuss the project’s findings with them.
6. Integrated Territorial Investment (ITI) is a mechanism introduced in the 2014–2020 EU Cohesion Policy framework to support integrated, place-based territorial strategies. It enables member states and managing authorities to combine funding from different priority axes and programmes, and in some cases different European Structural and Investment Funds (ESI) Funds, for the implementation of strategies targeting specific territories. In the Greek context, ITIs are described as comprehensive tools of spatial development, aimed either at mobilising the development potential of a specific territorial unit or at addressing the wide range of problems affecting it, through the securing of European and national funding for an integrated territorial strategy or development plan link. Overall, ITIs stand at the intersection of spatial planning, programme management and funding coordination, as they are meant to facilitate the connection between integrated territorial strategies, the actors responsible for them, and national or European sources of funding.
7. Special Urban Plans are defined as a planning tool used for the spatial organisation and development of areas, irrespectively of their administrative boundaries, which have the potential to function as receptors of supralocal and strategic projects and programmes and require special regulations regarding land uses and development terms (Law 4759/2020, Article 11). Within the cases for which Special Urban Plans can be drafted the following are mentioned: 1) within the context of programmes for urban regeneration, environmental protection or programmes that address the impact of natural disasters 2) for areas in which interventions are organised through programmes co-funded by the European Union (programmes such as Integrated Territorial Investments) 3) in the case of urgent necessity of state intervention in an area for the completion of first-level urban planning due to critical spatial problems or for the prevention of faits accomplis that would appear as a consequence of the absence or inadequacy of urban planning. Special Urban Plans first appeared as Special Spatial Plans during a period of social and political instability in 2014, under Law 4269/2014. Their main purpose was to support financial investment in land development by reducing bureaucratic obstacles and accelerating planning procedures. Although later legislative reforms under Law 4447/2016 sought to strengthen state oversight of land development processes and respond more effectively to environmental and climate-related concerns, the return of New Democracy to government in 2019 led to a renewed emphasis on Special Urban Plans. Law 4759/2020 confirmed their position within the spatial planning framework and removed the requirement for prior administrative approval of these plans. For a more detailed account of the role of Special Urban Plans in spatial planning in Greece see: Loukas Triantis, “Planning as an Exception: The Special Urban Plans in Greece’s Spatial Planning System,” in The Future of Circular Cities?! Planning for Sustainable and Inclusive Communities, ed. Lena Greinke, Linda Lange, and Loukas Triantis (Hannover: Institutionelles Repositorium der Leibniz Universität Hannover, 2025), 55–70, https://doi.org/10.15488/18216
8. S. Tsakiris and T. Moisiadi, “Presentation of the ‘Study of Special Urban Plan of the Municipality of Mantoudi-Limni-Agia Anna,’” presentation at the 3rd Meeting with the Institutions and Citizens of North Evia—The Presentations of the Studies, Evia, March 19, 2022, video recording, BLOD, accessed March 15, 2025, https://www.blod.gr/lectures/parousiasi-tis-meletis-eidikon-poleodomikon-shedion-dimou-mantoudiou-limnisag-annas/
9. For more information, see here: https://polsxedia.ypen.gov.gr/tps_details/%CE%923_79
10. Maria Karamanof, remarks in Η Ιδιωτικοποίηση του Χωρικού Σχεδιασμού [The Privatization of Spatial Planning], event held at the National Technical University of Athens, March 30, 2023, YouTube video, School of Architecture NTUA, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqjPgZf18HY
11. Article 16(5)(a) of Law 998/1979, inserted by Article 74 of Law 4843/2021 (Government Gazette A΄ 193/20.10.2021). The provision refers to direct award under Article 118 of Law 4412/2016 and negotiation without prior publication under Articles 32(2)(c) and 32A.
12. Article 76 of Law 4876/2021 (Government Gazette A΄ 251/23.12.2021) added Article 16(5)(c) to Law 998/1979. It expressly excluded Article 118(5), which at the time limited the aggregate annual value of certain direct awards by a contracting authority to 10% of the corresponding annual appropriations.
13. Under Article 118 of Law 4412/2016, as amended in 2021, the ordinary direct-award ceiling for public works was €60,000. Article 16(5) of Law 998/1979, as amended later that year, allowed direct awards for the forestry works described above up to the applicable EU works threshold, which was €5.35 million in 2021.
14. In its statement of 18 August 2026, the Ministry stated that Milestone 63, concerning the execution of the works, was due to be completed on 31 August 2026. Ministry of Environment and Energy, “Το Antinero κρίνεται από τα στοιχεία και τα αποτελέσματά του” [Antinero is judged by its data and results], August 18, 2026, https://ypen.gov.gr/to-antinero-krinetai-apo-ta-stoicheia-kai-ta-apotelesmata-tou/
15. Hellenic Ministry of Environment and Energy, “Το πρόγραμμα Antinero και η προστασία των δασών μας δεν πρέπει να γίνονται πεδίο μικροπολιτικής εκμετάλλευσης” [“The AntiNero Programme and the Protection of Our Forests Should Not Become a Field of Petty Political Exploitation”], June 24, 2025.
16. Despina Papageorgiou, “Φάκελος «Antinero» Μέρος Α’: Θωρακίζει πράγματι το Antinero τα δάση από τις καταστροφικές πυρκαγιές;” [“The AntiNero File, Part A: Does AntiNero Really Protect Forests from Devastating Wildfires?”], Popaganda, September 28, 2024, https://popaganda.gr/stories/fakelos-antinero-meros-a-thorakizei-pragmati-to-antinero-ta-dasi-apo-tis-katastrofikes-pyrkagies/; Papageorgiou, “Φάκελος «Antinero» Μέρος Β’: Προστατεύει ή υποβαθμίζει περιβαλλοντικά τα δάση το Antinero;” [“The AntiNero File, Part B: Does AntiNero Protect or Environmentally Degrade Forests?”], Popaganda, October 1, 2024, https://popaganda.gr/stories/fakelos-antinero-meros-v-prostateyei-i-ypovathmizei-perivallontika-ta-dasi-to-antinero/.
17. Law 998/1979, art. 25(3)(f), as amended by Law 4819/2021, art. 150; see also Law 998/1979, art. 16.
18. Despina Papageorgiou, “Φάκελος «Antinero» Μέρος Γ’: «Καταστρατηγείται η περιβαλλοντική νομοθεσία της ΕΕ, με χρήματα που μας δίνει η ίδια»” [“The AntiNero File, Part C: ‘EU Environmental Legislation Is Being Circumvented with Money Provided by the EU Itself’”], Popaganda, October 4, 2024, https://popaganda.gr/stories/reportage/fakelos-antinero-meros-g-katastratigeitai-i-perivallontiki-nomothesia-tis-ee-me-chrimata-poy-mas-dinei-i-idia/; Papageorgiou, “Αναφορά 206 σελίδων καταγγέλλει οικολογικό σκάνδαλο ευρωπαϊκών διαστάσεων στο πρόγραμμα Antinero” [“206-Page Petition Alleges an Ecological Scandal of European Dimensions in the AntiNero Programme”], Popaganda, June 16, 2025, https://popaganda.gr/stories/anafora-206-selidon-kataggellei-oikologiko-skandalo-eyropaikon-diastaseon-sto-programma-antinero/.
19. European Parliament, “AntiNero Programme in Greece,” Question for Written Answer E-002676/2024, submitted by Maria Zacharia, November 27, 2024; European Commission, “Answer Given by Executive Vice-President Fitto on Behalf of the European Commission,” E-002676/2024, January 24, 2025. Parliamentary question Commission answer
20. European Parliament, Committee on Petitions, “Petition No. 0823/2025 by S. P. (Greek), Signed by 212 Other Citizens and Associations, on Alleged Breach of EU Environmental Law in the Implementation of the Fire Prevention Programme ‘AntiNero’ in Greece,” Notice to Members, PE 785.139v01-00, February 6, 2026; European Parliament, Committee on Petitions, “The Implementation of the Fire Prevention Programme ‘AntiNero’ in Greece,” PETI Newsletter, November 2025. Official petition record
21. Joint Research Centre, “Wildfires: 2023 among the Worst in the EU in This Century,” European Commission, April 10, 2024, https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-updates/wildfires-2023-among-worst-eu-century-2024-04-10_en
22. Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis and Kevin Lo, “The Political Ecology of Wildfire: Media and the Politics of Blame in the Evros Wildfires in Greece,” Trees, Forests and People 18 (2024): 4, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tfp.2024.100682
23. Hellenic Court of Audit, Seventh Chamber, Decision 1379/2024, “Αντιπλημμυρικά έργα – Διαδικασία διαπραγμάτευσης χωρίς δημοσίευση προκήρυξης” [“Flood-Protection Works—Negotiated Procedure without Prior Publication”], 2024, https://www.elsyn.gr/el/legal-case/13792024; Aris Chatzigeorgiou, “Οι θαυμαστές μπίζνες της ΤΕΡΝΑ στις στάχτες του Έβρου” [“TERNA’s Remarkable Business Deals in the Ashes of Evros”], Data Journalists, April 14, 2025, https://www.datajournalists.co.uk/2025/04/14/oi-thaymastes-mpiznes-tis-terna-stis-stachtes-toy-evroy/.
24. Ibid.
25. Hellenic Ministry of Environment and Energy, “Το Antinero κρίνεται από τα στοιχεία και τα αποτελέσματά του.”
26. Πανελλαδική Επιτροπή Αγώνα Δασικών Συνεταιρισμών [Panhellenic Committee of Forest Cooperatives], “Οι Δασικοί Συνεταιρισμοί απέναντι στα Υβριδικά Σχήματα και την ιδιωτικοποίηση των δασών” [Forest Cooperatives against Hybrid Schemes and the Privatization of Forests], press release, July 21, 2025, published by Dasarxeio.com, July 22, 2025, https://dasarxeio.com/2025/07/22/145314/

Sourcing and organisation of the data

The three datasets presented on the this platform were compiled from documents already publicly available through KIMDIS and Diavgeia. KIMDIS is Greece’s Central Electronic Registry of Public Contracts, where contracts and the administrative records connected to their procurement are published. Diavgeia is the central transparency platform through which public bodies publish administrative decisions and acts. These two platforms form the main sources of the documents used in this research. Rather than relying only on the metadata available through these platforms, the research also uses the signed PDFs and the administrative documents linked to them, supplementing them where necessary with information from the public registries ΓΕΜΗ and VIES, for example to verify the registered location of contractors. For the forest workers’ cooperatives, VIES is not a supplement but the principal source of the registered office, since forest cooperatives do not appear in ΓΕΜΗ. Beyond the documents themselves, the platform draws on reference layers that supply geography: the Kallikratis administrative boundaries published by geodata.gov.gr, which provide the regional units used throughout; the Copernicus EFFIS burnt area layer, whose scars are satellite estimates; and the OpenStreetMap Nominatim service, used to place addresses and named locations on the maps.

The starting documents differ across the three datasets that are assembled.

For the antinero dataset, the search was programme based. A first list of contracts was compiled manually through ΚΗΜΔΗΣ by searching different spellings of antinero and references to Recovery and Resilience Facility Measure 16849. This list was then expanded through scripted searches intended to locate contracts that the manual search had missed. A contract enters the dataset only where there is positive evidence of its connection to the programme, through the antinero name in the registry title, a funding code associated with the programme, or an explicit reference to Measure 16849 in the signed PDF document. Eight contract chains from 2022 are included on the strength of the registry title alone: they carry the programme name but no funding code, and their signed texts contain no reference to Measure 16849. They account for roughly 1.7 per cent of the value analysed. Later amendments inherit the programme membership of the contract they modify, while management and support contracts are excluded from financial aggregates to avoid counting the same funding twice.

For the dataset of works awarded directly to Forest Workers’ Cooperatives, the search instead begins with the contractor. It covers contracts published from September 2021 onwards in which the contracting party could be identified as a Forest Workers’ Cooperative (ΔΑ.Σ.Ε.) under Law 4423/2016; publication being the only date on which the registry allows a search to be bounded; seven contracts signed in the weeks before that date are therefore included. This contractor first approach was necessary because procurement categories alone do not identify the full range of works carried out by cooperatives. Of the 2,171 records collected in this way, 2,004 are treated as live contracts: registry cancellations, superseded versions, contracts posted twice and a small number whose signed text names no cooperative are excluded from the analysis. The Ministry of Environment and Energy maintains the official Register of Forest Cooperative Organisations and Forest Workers (ΜΗΔΑΣΟ) but no public list of registered cooperatives could be obtained for this research: the register has no public interface, and forest cooperatives are not recorded in ΓΕΜΗ. The list of forest workers’ cooperatives presented here was therefore created from the those identified through contracts and related documents sourced for this research. This also means that the number of forest workers’ cooperatives found in the dataset cannot be compared with the total number registered nationally.

The privately financed restoration and reforestation dataset follows a third route. Since the restoration and reforestation contractor mechanism does not involve public procurement, these projects do not appear as contracts in KIMDIS. The dataset was therefore assembled from designation acts published on Diavgeia and the administrative acts cited by them. Information on the contractor, area, budget, duration and scope of the intervention was extracted primarily from the text of the designation acts themselves.

Across the datasets, records referring to the same actor or place are organised through stable identifiers wherever possible. Contractors and forest workers’ cooperatives are matched through their Tax Identification Number, ΑΦΜ, because the same entity may appear under several spellings across the registries. Those different spellings remain searchable and are retained as evidence, while the displayed name is curated from the documents. Awarding bodies are grouped by their normalised name rather than by tax number, since tax identifiers do not distinguish them reliably in every case. Geographical analysis uses the 74 Kallikratis regional units. For antinero, the regions of intervention are identified from the contracts themselves. For cooperative contracts, the regional unit is normally derived from the territorial competence of the forest authority that awarded the contract. For the privately financed projects, the location, area of intervention and responsible forest authority are extracted from the designation acts.

Document analysis and validation

The information collected does not rely only on the metadata stored in KIMDIS and Diavgeia for the documents sourced. Instead, the metadata of each document was cross checked against the information contained in its signed PDF. The metadata of each contract included its ADAM identifier, dates, contracting authority, contractor, funding source, stated value, procurement procedure, legal basis and CPV codes, the European Union’s standard classification system for public procurement. Information that was either absent or insufficiently detailed in the metadata was then extracted from the contract itself, including the location and scope of the works, the responsible forest authority and, where it could be established, the announced duration of the contract. The upstream procurement records (funding requests, calls and award decisions) are retained as the registries publish them and were read only where a contract’s trail depended on them.

In the cases where the metadata recorded in KIMDIS or Diavgeia contradicted the information contained in the signed documents, the signed documents were treated as the stronger source. Corrections were made only where the original PDF provided clear evidence, including cases of incorrectly entered tax numbers, values or other metadata fields, and these corrections are disclosed on the corresponding page of the contract.

The ADAM of each contract was also used to reconstruct its wider administrative trail. Related documents were collected from KIMDIS and Diavgeia, including funding requests, calls or invitations, award decisions, revisions of contract terms, supplementary contracts and works, deadline extensions, payment orders and, where available, acts recording completion or final acceptance. Since the registries do not always link these records consistently, connections were also established through references contained in the documents themselves. This document trail makes it possible to follow a contract beyond the moment at which it was signed and to distinguish its originally stated terms from later changes made to it. Payments are attributed to the final version of the chain, so that a payment made against an amended contract is not recorded under the version it replaced.

Scripts were used to retrieve, organise and connect records at a scale that would have been difficult to handle manually. AI assistance was used in developing the scripts and processing workflow, particularly as the researcher had no prior coding experience. Inclusion decisions, classifications, corrections and ambiguous results were nevertheless reviewed against the original documents by the researcher. Automated processing was therefore used to manage the scale of the material, rather than to substitute for the validation of the sources themselves.

Analytical conventions

For the antinero dataset and the dataset including works awarded to Forest Workers’ Cooperatives, monetary analysis is based on the stated value of each contract excluding VAT. This is the amount agreed in the signed contract and provides a consistent basis for comparison across the two datasets. It also corresponds to the basis on which the procurement thresholds of Law 4412/2016 are defined. Payments identified through KIMDIS and Diavgeia are presented separately and are not substituted for the stated contract value, since payment records could not be found consistently for all contracts.

The privately financed restoration and reforestation dataset cannot follow the same convention because its designation acts are not procurement records and monetary information is reported less consistently. Of the 69 projects identified, 44 state a monetary amount, but only 15 specify that this is net of VAT, while two state a value inclusive of VAT and 27 give no indication of the VAT basis. Where an act explicitly identifies a net value, that amount is used. Where an act states a value inclusive of VAT and gives no net equivalent, the stated value is retained. Where the VAT basis is not specified, the value is retained as stated rather than converted. The remaining 25 projects do not state a monetary amount and are therefore left without a recorded budget rather than being estimated.

Some antinero contracts cover more than one regional unit or involve more than one contracting party, while the documents provide only one total contract value. Where no information on its internal allocation is available, the value is divided equally between the regions or partners concerned for the purposes of aggregate maps and rankings. This is an analytical convention and does not imply that expenditure or revenue was actually distributed equally. Where a joint venture signs as a single legal entity, it is counted as one contractor. A separate view identifies the firms behind a joint venture only where their membership is explicitly documented in the available documents and is never inferred from its name.

Finally, procurement categories are read in relation to the legislation under which the contracts were awarded. In particular, the frequent designation of Forest Workers’ Cooperative contracts in KIMDIS as direct awards does not necessarily refer to the direct award procedure and thresholds of Law 4412/2016. Many of these contracts are instead awarded under the Forest Code and the specific framework governing the assignment of forestry work to cooperatives.

Limitations, ethics and reproducibility

The three datasets should not be read as complete inventories of all forestry works undertaken during the period examined. Their coverage depends on what could be identified and connected through the publicly available records of KIMDIS and Diavgeia. Contracts or related administrative acts may therefore exist that were not identified through the searches used here. This limitation is particularly important for the Forest Workers’ Cooperative dataset, since the official ΜΗΔΑΣΟ register was not publicly accessible and it was therefore not possible to compare the cooperatives identified through contracts with the total population of registered cooperatives.

The availability of documents also varies between different stages of a contract. Payment orders and acts recording completion or final acceptance could not be identified consistently for all contracts. The absence of such a document is therefore treated as an absence from the records sourced rather than as evidence that a payment was not made or that works were not completed. Any status based on the absence of a later document should be read with this limitation in mind.

The records presented on the platform were last refreshed on 31 August 2026. Counts, sums and shares shown in the visualisations are calculated from the underlying databases rather than entered manually into individual graphs. The processing workflow can be rerun as new records become available, while corrections, classification decisions and changes to the rules used in processing the material are retained in a dated decision log. This makes it possible to trace not only the sources behind individual records but also the methodological decisions through which they were organised and presented.

The research is based on publicly accessible administrative records concerning public contracts, organisations and public expenditure. A number of contractors are natural persons trading in their own name; they appear under the name the documents themselves use, since that is the identifier under which they hold the contract. Information concerning individual persons appearing in these documents is not treated as an object of analysis unless it is necessary for identifying the institutional role through which they appear in the administrative record. One available source was deliberately not used: the tax administration’s company lookup, which would have resolved contractor identities but notifies the holder of every tax number queried.

Fieldwork encounters

Alongside the documentary and data-based research described above, field visits to North Evia in February and April 2026 helped shape the questions and interpretative framework of the project. During these visits, I had informal conversations with residents, employees of the Forest Service offices in Limni and Aidipsos and the Directorate of Forests of Evia in Chalkida and forest workers, including members of forest workers’ cooperatives. These conversations were not conducted as structured interviews, but the experiences, observations, and practical knowledge shared through them played an important role in shaping the direction of the research. They brought practices, legislative changes, institutional connections, and questions into focus for subsequent investigation through administrative records, legislation, contracts, planning documents, and published investigations. Everyone I spoke with was informed of the research context and agreed orally that what they shared could inform the project. Given the informal nature of these encounters, individual observations and accounts remain unattributed unless explicit permission was given. Access to some of these conversations was facilitated by pre-existing personal connections to North Evia and familiarity with local forestry institutions. I acknowledge that these connections influenced both the encounters available to me and the direction of the research.

The expansion of public funding for forestry work did not expand the existing cooperative route. It created another one. Antinero distributes more than 21 times the stated value of the contracts awarded directly to Forest Workers’ Cooperatives, despite containing almost eight times fewer contracts. The difference at contract level is even sharper. The median antinero contract is €2.10 million compared with €5,792 for a cooperative contract, and even the smallest antinero contract is larger than 95 per cent of the cooperative contracts. None of the 246 cooperatives identified here appears among the 157 antinero contractors. The yearly comparison is also revealing. As antinero expenditure accelerates from 2022 and reaches €248.4 million in 2024, direct contracting with cooperatives does not increase alongside it and remains below its 2021 and 2022 levels. This does not establish that one caused the decline of the other, but it does show that the major expansion of state funded forest work since 2022 has overwhelmingly reached a different population of contractors.

The awarding process also changes where the relationship between the state, the forest and the contractor is organised. In the cooperative dataset, around €28.5 million of the €30.2 million identified passes through local forest service offices or forest directorates. The work is distributed by a much wider network of public bodies and reaches cooperatives through the territorial structure of the Forest Service. Antinero reverses this architecture. All €633.6 million is awarded by the Ministry of Environment and Energy through a small number of central operating units, while the local Forest Services principally retain responsibility for supervising and accepting works contracted elsewhere.

The distinction matters because contracting is one of the practices through which knowledge about the forest, the timing of work and relations with forest workers are produced. Moving the awarding of works away from these local relations therefore redistributes not only expenditure but part of the practical capacity to organise forest management.

The unit of forestry work itself is changing. The cooperative records describe a field made up largely of numerous small and recurring assignments, particularly firewood, logging and silvicultural works, carried out through relations between forest authorities, workers and particular territories. Antinero packages intervention differently. Contracts frequently combine studies with execution and extend across several regional units and Forest Services. The enormous difference between the two median contract values therefore matters beyond money. It affects which actors can enter the contract in the first place and transforms work that can be organised in relation to a particular forest and season into larger projects defined through budgets, quantities, technical specifications and deadlines. Forest intervention is made increasingly calculable and contractible, and place-specific processes are converted into discrete projects that can be repeatedly procured.

Fire temporarily disrupts the territorial organisation of cooperative work, while also opening routes that persist beyond the emergency. Evia, Ilia and Evros are among the places where substantial flows of cooperative work coincide with major post-fire interventions. Cooperatives travel beyond their own regions when the scale of restoration demands additional labour. Antinero, however, incorporates these post-fire interventions into the same programme that carries out recurring preventive works across the country. This reflects the legislative chronology. Procedures introduced through the urgency of the 2021 fires were extended within months to ordinary forms of forest management, while the programme subsequently broadened from fuel reduction to planning, reforestation and post-fire flood and erosion works. The exceptional intervention therefore does not simply end when the fire does. It becomes repeatable.

Finally, the privately financed projects show that access to public forests is not redistributed only through public money. The restoration and reforestation contractor mechanism has brought 36 companies and organisations into 69 projects, with electricity and energy companies, banks, construction-related firms and other large corporate actors particularly visible. Here the company does not receive a public contract. It finances the intervention itself, while acquiring an authorised role in the restoration of a public forest and the possibility of associating its name with that restoration. The financial scale is much smaller than antinero, but its significance lies elsewhere. It established immediately after the 2021 fires that private capital and expertise could become a route into post-fire forest governance.

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Figures 01–03. Fires in northern Evia, Gouves, Greece, August 8, 2021. Photographs by Vassilis Rempapis. Credit: EUROKINISSI/Vassilis Rempapis.

Figure 04. Residents and vacationers evacuating Limni, Evia, Greece, by ferry, August 6, 2021. Photograph by Sotiris Dimitropoulos. Credit: EUROKINISSI/Sotiris Dimitropoulos.

Figure 05. Evia Island Wildfire, Gouves, Evia, Greece, August 8, 2021. Photograph by Konstantinos Tsakalidis. Credit: Konstantinos Tsakalidis/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Figure 06. A man watches as a wildfire approaches Kochyli Beach near Limni, Evia, Greece, August 6, 2021. Photograph by Thodoris Nikolaou. Credit: AP Photo/Thodoris Nikolaou.

Figure 07. Flames burn on the mountain near Limni village, Evia, Greece, August 3, 2021. Photograph by Michael Pappas. Credit: AP Photo/Michael Pappas. Reproduced in The Guardian, October 14, 2021.

Figure 08. A wildfire approaches houses in the village of Loutro, Greece, September 30, 2024. Photograph by Valérie Gache. Credit: Valérie Gache/AFP via Getty Images. Reproduced in The Guardian.

Figure 09. Wildfire near the village of Gouves, Evia, Greece, August 8, 2021. Photograph by Angelos Tzortzinis. Credit: Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP via Getty Images. Reproduced in LiFO.

Figure 10. Wildfire between Petries and Krieza, Evia, Greece, July 30, 2024. Photograph by Michalis Karagiannis. Credit: Michalis Karagiannis/EUROKINISSI.

Figure 11. A firefighting airplane makes a water drop as a wildfire burns near the village of Ellinika, Evia, Greece, August 8, 2021. Photograph by Alexandros Avramidis. Credit: Reuters/Alexandros Avramidis.

Figure 12. A convoy of fire trucks travels along a road during a wildfire in Lalas, near Olympia, western Greece, August 5, 2021. Photograph by Giannis Spyrounis. Credit: Giannis Spyrounis/ilialive.gr via AP.

Figure 13. European Space Agency. Smoke and Flames in Australia. Copernicus Sentinel-2 image acquired December 31, 2019. Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO or ESA Standard Licence.

Figure 14. Copernicus. Evia Wildfire, Greece. Copernicus Sentinel-2 image acquired August 8, 2021. Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery.

Figure 15. NASA Earth Observatory. Camp Fire Rages in California. Image acquired November 8, 2018. NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Figure 16. Copernicus. Burn Scar in the Aude Region, France. Copernicus Sentinel-2 image acquired August 14, 2025. Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery.

Figure 17. Copernicus. Devastating Bushfires in the Grampians National Park, Australia. Copernicus Sentinel-2 images acquired December 18, 2024; January 1, 2025; and February 6, 2025. Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery.

Figure 18. Copernicus. Wildfire Burn Scars along the Spain–Portugal Border. False-colour Copernicus Sentinel-2 image acquired September 5, 2025. Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery.

Figures 19a–b, 20, and 28. False-colour satellite composites produced by the author in QGIS from Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 multispectral imagery. Source data: U.S. Geological Survey, Landsat Collection 2 Level-2 Surface Reflectance products. Satellite bands were combined, processed, and clipped to the geographic areas examined in this research. Cartographic processing and design by the author. Credit: Landsat Collection 2 Level-2 imagery courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Figure 21. 112 Emergency Alerts. Map and data visualisation by the author. Emergency-alert data compiled from publicly documented posts published by the official 112 Greece (@112Greece) account during August 2021. Burned-area data derived from the NASA VIIRS/NPP Burned Area Monthly L4 Global 500 m SIN Grid product (VNP64A1). Cartographic processing and design by the author.

Figure 22. Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic. Συνέντευξη Τύπου του Πρωθυπουργού Κυριάκου Μητσοτάκη [Press Conference of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis], August 12, 2021. Image reproduced from the official Prime Minister’s Office publication.

Figure 23. Comparative maps produced by the author after georeferencing official spatial-planning documents for the Municipality of Mantoudi–Limni–Agia Anna. Sources: the General Urban Plan (ΓΠΣ) of the former Municipality of Elymnion; the General Urban Plan (ΓΠΣ) of the former Municipality of Kireas; the Spatial and Residential Organisation Plan for an Open City (ΣΧΟΟΑΠ) of the former Municipality of Nileas; and the subsequent Special Urban Plan of the Municipality of Mantoudi–Limni–Agia Anna. Cartographic selection, synthesis, georeferencing, and design by the author.

Figure 24a. CNN Greece. “Ταχεία αποκατάσταση καμένων περιοχών της Βαρυμπόμπης μέσα από σημαντική δωρεά της Coca-Cola.” December 9, 2021. Screenshot edited by the author.

Figure 24b. CNN Greece. “Η Παπαστράτος φυτεύει 70.000 δέντρα.” December 8, 2021. Screenshot edited by the author.

Figure 25. Hellenic Ministry of Environment and Energy (ΥΠΕΝ). “Εκδήλωση του Υπουργείου Περιβάλλοντος και Ενέργειας για την παρουσίαση του θεσμού Αναδόχου Αποκατάστασης και Αναδάσωσης, με τίτλο ‘Συνεργασία για τη Δημιουργία.’” March 21, 2025. Selection and editing of images by the author.

Figure 26. Hellenic Ministry of Environment and Energy (ΥΠΕΝ). Πρόγραμμα Προστασίας Δασών ANTINERO: Καταγραφή Εκτάσεων Εργασιών. 2024. Map.

Figure 27. Graph produced by the author showing the distribution of work types included in antinero programme contracts. Data compiled and analysed by the author from antinero programme contracts and associated official documentation.

Figure 28. Evros, 2023. False-colour Landsat composite showing the spatial extent of areas affected by the 2023 fires. See the shared source and processing credit for Figures 19a–b, 20, and 28 above.

Figure 29. Forest workers’ cooperatives protesting private-company involvement in forest management during the general strike of April 9, 2025. Image reproduced in Ethnos, “Απεργία 9 Απριλίου: Δείτε φωτογραφίες από τις συγκεντρώσεις στην Αθήνα και σε άλλες πόλεις της Ελλάδας,” April 9, 2025.