The number of proposed visitor service sites in the Akamas has been cut from 14 to eight, the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment said on Wednesday in response to an Audit Office special report on the area.
Further changes are under way to reduce the environmental impact of the projects, the ministry also said. It said it would study the Audit Office’s findings and recommendations and use them to keep improving its procedures for protecting, managing and governing the environment.
During the consultation before the report was finalised, the ministry sent the Auditor General a 36-page letter setting out its views, clarifications and comments, and those of its departments, on the draft findings and conclusions. The letter was included in full as an annex to the final report, and the ministry noted that its positions were available to the public in their entirety.
According to the ministry, any assessment of the Akamas projects must take into account four things: “the full history of the decisions”, the legal and institutional framework in force when they were taken, the powers of the authorities involved, and the corrective and improvement action that followed.
Significant measures have been taken in recent years, particularly after Cabinet decisions, the ministry said. They aim to further reduce the projects’ environmental footprint, reassess technical interventions, strengthen environmental conditions, review hydraulic works and take additional compliance action for the Natura 2000 sites in the Akamas.
A decree is also being prepared to set specific conservation objectives for Natura 2000 sites, including the Akamas peninsula. The ministry said this was in light of recent case law of the EU Court of Justice and guidance from the Law Office of the Republic, and that all the relevant services were working on it together.
The ministry said it had repeatedly stressed the need for continuous improvement in environmental assessment, documentation, monitoring and administrative coordination.
It said the Sustainable Development Plan for the Akamas National Forest Park was the first comprehensive attempt to set a single framework for protecting, managing and organising the area. The plan aimed to limit existing pressures on the area, manage visits, control unregulated vehicle traffic, close illegal roads and strengthen the protection of habitats and biodiversity.
Report’s findings
The Audit Office has sent the report to the Attorney General to assess possible criminal or other liability. The report found that problems with the construction works in the park were caught only after the natural environment had already been disturbed. That led to suspended works, terminated contracts, redesigns, extra construction costs and what the report called irreparable environmental damage.
The Department of Forests and the Environment Department, which are responsible for the works, rejected the report’s conclusions. They did not accept its references to irreparable environmental damage or to the works’ incompatibility. They said the plans were drawn up to protect the environment, control unregulated visitor numbers and implement the approved sustainable development plans.
The report found that the Environmental Authority assessed the Sustainable Development Plan without first setting specific conservation objectives for the Akamas Natura 2000 site. Under recent EU Court of Justice case law, setting such objectives first is a legal precondition for a valid assessment, it said. The departments said the lack of a formal decree at the time of approval did not undermine the substance of the assessment, because all protected species and habitat types at the site had been taken into account. The report also noted that Cyprus was referred to the EU Court of Justice in April 2026 for continued failure to comply with the Habitats Directive.
The contract to upgrade part of the park’s main road network under Phase A was worth 6,295,000 euros plus VAT. When work was suspended on 11 December 2023, only 1,112,158 euros’ worth had been carried out, 17.67 per cent of the project, although 94 per cent of the contract period had passed.
Auditors found that binding environmental conditions were not correctly reflected in the final construction drawings. On the Toxeftra–Avakas–Lipati road, box culverts were designed instead of bridges that would leave the riverbed open for the critically endangered European eel. During construction, excavations reached depths of up to 2.10 metres against a permitted maximum of 1.875 metres, the road was widened further and the works covered a wider area.
The report also found that rubble and soil were dumped unchecked at various points inside the park, on undisturbed ground and natural habitats, in breach of the environmental approvals. Of 19 supplementary or amended conditions imposed by the Environmental Authority after the works were suspended, 17 remained unmet. The other two could no longer be applied because the environmental damage was irreversible.
The departments said the work, including the excavations and road widths, was carried out within the technical specifications needed for a safe road surface. They rejected the view that the culverts blocked the movement of eels, and said most of the 19 conditions were being implemented or built into new plans.
(Information from Cyprus News Agency)
