Only 17.67 per cent of the works in the Akamas National Forest Park have been completed although 94 per cent of the contract time has passed, the Audit Office said in a special report that found serious weaknesses in how the works were managed and delivered. The works have a contract value of 6.295 million euros, and the report comes three years after complaints were submitted about them.
The weaknesses range from the environmental impact assessment and the setting of environmental terms to discrepancies between the construction plans and the Environmental Authority’s legally binding, essential terms, and departures from those plans and terms during construction.
The report’s main finding is the lack of specific conservation objectives. The environmental assessment of the area was carried out before the required objectives had been set, the Audit Office said.
It said protecting an environmentally sensitive area cannot rely on identifying problems after the event, noting that 19 supplementary or amended environmental terms were imposed after the works began. The audit found that 17 of them have not yet been fully met. These cover the water supply to the park’s management and visitor service hubs, drainage channels, retaining walls, excavations, and stormwater and erosion on the park’s road network. The remaining two concern over-excavation, and the Audit Office said the environmental damage caused cannot be reversed.
Illegal restaurants
Illegal restaurants and refreshment outlets are still operating in the area and increasing, the Audit Office said, almost five years after the opinions and environmental terms issued in 2021. There has been no progress in removing illegal premises inside the park and the Natura 2000 areas, it said. The situation remains out of control, with new premises springing up and mobile refreshment kiosks moving around freely because of a lack of supervision.
The report gives details of premises at Lara South Bay. One is a restaurant, with adjoining buildings and a water tank, standing illegally on state forest land in an area designated as a Beach Protection Zone, a Marine Protected Area and a Terrestrial Zone of High Nature Protection. The land is occupied illegally, without a lease from the Forestry Department. The department won the case at first instance and a demolition order was issued, but the order has not been carried out because an appeal is pending.
On 18 September 2026, lightning struck during severe weather and started a fire that destroyed the restaurant. The Audit Office has written to the Forestry Department saying that, as the legal owner of the land, it must arrange immediately for the fire debris to be removed and the site restored. No attempt to repair or rebuild the illegal restaurant should be tolerated, it said.
The report also refers to a prefabricated structure at Lara South Bay that directly adjoins the same protected zones and the Lara–Toxeftra Marine Protected Area. The Audit Office describes it as another serious environmental burden on the area.
It said the continued presence of illegal premises places a cumulative burden on the sensitive Akamas environment, and called for the procedures to remove all illegal structures to be speeded up without further delay. The Audit Office also called on the Paphos District Local Government Organisation (DLGO) to record all violations and keep a full, updated register with dates for each action, such as detection, notices and legal measures. The audit found that the organisation’s existing register lacked key dates and did not even include several of the violations identified.
Ministry response
The Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment said in a statement on the report that the proposed visitor service sites in Akamas have been reduced to eight from the 14 originally planned. Further changes are being pursued to reduce the environmental impact of the works, it said.
The ministry said it remains committed to the effective protection and management of Akamas, by enforcing environmental law, carrying out the necessary corrective action and working with all relevant institutions and bodies. Taking account of recent case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and guidance from the Law Office of the Republic, it is preparing a decree to establish specific conservation objectives for Natura 2000 sites, including the Akamas peninsula.
Environmental groups
According to the report, environmental groups’ concerns and complaints about discrepancies between the environmental terms and the construction plans for Phase A of the park’s road network upgrade were entirely well founded and justified.
Environmental organisation Terra Cypria said there was a particularly worrying attitude of denial of the weaknesses, shortcomings, irregularities and errors recorded so far. It noted that all the authorities involved, except the Forestry Department, and all stakeholders had acknowledged from the outset, in writing and publicly, the discrepancies between the environmental terms and the construction plans or works.
The group called for the law to be applied properly and for the environmental impact assessment procedure to be fully respected, in line with Cabinet decisions and the recent EU Court of Justice ruling. It said the agriculture ministry should ensure that specific conservation objectives and suitable management measures are set for the Akamas Peninsula Natura 2000 Special Area of Conservation and Special Protection Area.
All phases and projects of the Akamas National Forest Park Sustainable Development Plan should then be redesigned and reassessed, Terra Cypria said.
