March 22th, 2007

The evocative imagery that weaves around the olive tree has captured the hearts and imagination of millions of people over time.

Documented cases show that olive trees can live and fruit for over 1000 years. They have always formed an important part of Cypriot culture, celebrated throughout the island with festivals held in honour of the olive and its by products.

In the last 12 years many olive trees have been lost on this island, not only through the great fire of 1995 but also through building and construction work which has been carried out with a complete disregard to the environment and culture of the island. This has resulted in groups being formed to educate governments, schools, developers and individuals alike.

People come to Cyprus for its incredible natural beauty; don’t sit back and see it destroyed; be responsible for your environment, replace, replant, and restore it. When construction work began on SeaTerra Reserve, a major concern was how to conserve the numerous olive trees that were growing on the site where SeaTerra were planning to build.

Any trees which were directly in the way of construction work or may have been damaged during the course of the work, were carefully dug out with their root ball intact and pruned back to encourage root growth when they were transplanted. Olives love light loamy soil with bright sunshine, are resilient to salt winds and all but severe extremes of temperature, making transplant conditions on two of our completed SeaTerra developments ideal home for some of the trees. Some of the transplanted trees are now happily settling into their new home on SeaTerra Esentepe, while others are getting used to their new coastal residence on SeaTerra Marina. The majority of the trees are to remain on SeaTerra Reserve in a temporary nursery facility, where they are tended to daily until the construction is complete and they can be settled back into a permanent home.

By acting responsibly there is no reason why all developers can’t help to preserve the natural beauty of Northern Cyprus, after all the heavy machinery to move the tree is already on site all it takes is a little time and consideration to reposition and replant them, thus preserving the islands beauty for future generations.