Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Panel 8. Paper 8.1 Tourism, Dams And Greed: Lessons From The Destruction Of A Rural Cultural Landscape In Crete, Carla Chifos

ISCCL Scientific Symposia and Annual General Meetings // Symposiums scientifiques et assemblées générales annuelles de l'ISCCL // Simposios científicos yy las Asambleas Generales Anuales

Four thousand years of shaping the landscape, developing sustainable agricultural practices and products, and forming a symbiotic relationship with ecological systems in the Aposelemis Valley of Crete has been disrupted due to the building of a large dam in the heart of that landscape. The politics and decision-making that resulted in the building and implementation of this dam are already documented and analyzed in a recent paper (Chifos, et al, 2019). This paper re-examines what happened in this Valley from the perspective of the cultural/heritage advocates and where the barriers to protecting and maintaining this landscape were and still are. …