Preveli’s palm forest could turn green again within two to three years, botanist says
The palm forest at Preveli, in southern Rethymno, suffered its worst damage since 2010 after a wildfire swept through the area, raising questions about how quickly the site can recover, according to Orange Press Agency.
Eleftheria Antaloudaki, a botanist and curator of a department at the Natural History Museum of Crete, told the agency that the destruction is extensive but that she remains cautiously optimistic. She said the Cretan date palm is a fairly resilient plant “that can withstand such disturbances, so it can regenerate.”
According to Antaloudaki, the palm’s ability to recover depends on the water it stores internally. As long as the tree’s central, inner core is not burned, “within a few years we see it sprouting again,” she said.
She noted that part of the forest was left untouched by the fire, which she described as a positive sign. However, most of the palms grow at the river’s estuary, and those are the ones that burned. The recovery of the Preveli forest carries particular weight because the ecosystem “does not exist anywhere else in Europe apart from Crete and the Canary Islands,” which also have native palm species. For that reason, the Natural History Museum of Crete takes part as a partner with the Canary Islands in a European program aimed at conserving the Cretan date palm, also known as the Theophrastus palm.
“We need to think seriously about what could happen”
Antaloudaki said any recovery also depends on relieving pressure on the site, whether from human activity or other factors. She warned that if wildfires in the area become more frequent, “at some point even the palm may not be able to withstand and regrow.” A recent assessment found Crete facing a high wildfire risk heading into the weekend, underscoring the concern.
She added that authorities and residents should “think very seriously about what can and will happen, for example, with tourism,” saying that any human intervention at the site constitutes a form of pressure on the ecosystem.
Under normal conditions, Antaloudaki said, the palm forest could be expected to begin greening again within two to three years, provided nothing unusual occurs, such as a new fire next year. She called that a relatively fast recovery timeline for the palms themselves, noting that early signs of new growth have already appeared in the burned area. She cautioned, however, that restoring the forest’s full ecological balance is a longer process. “Restoring the structure, composition and ecological function of an ecosystem can take many decades,” she said, “in order for it to return to its balance.”
