Using e-mails and text messages, people from the internet community managed to organize another protest before the Parliament building last night. The protest march was scheduled to begin at 7 p.m., but the majority of the crowd turned up later on.
Unsurprisingly, the main intent of the protestants was to voice their grievances against the damages caused by the fires and the burning of the pine forests in the outskirts of Athens. In the last three days, some 130,000,000 m2 of forests were destroyed, killing a significant number of the animal population and causing the rest to migrate. Environmentalists predict a 6 degrees Celsius increase of temperatures in the Attica region in the following years, due to the lack of the natural air cooling effect provided by the forests.
People also voiced their concerns against building on the burnt areas. This latest demonstration was a silent one for a change and no one was shouting slogans or behaving violently. Participants tried to make their point quietly, maybe as an initial warning to the government. There were a number of large canvases arguing against hunting in the forests, while environmentalist organizations were distributing pamphlets with disturbing facts:
"2007: 12% of Greek forests were destroyed while 75 people lost their lives in the fire-hell.
2009: It seems that the government has not learnt anything, and has done nothing to prevent the tragedy."