If you are spending this summer in Cyprus, you are probably developing thoughts about your weather preferences, along such lines: Do I prefer the hot summers or the cold winters? The humidity of the summers or the dry winters? How sustainable can summer life be when confined to air-conditioned spaces? What kind of summer weather do we experience, when the temperature difference between the coast and the high mountains is a mere two degrees?

Such is the changing summer weather on this island, and you are rightly concerned.

Next, you cast a wider eye, and reach out to the Amazon. This gigantic forest has experienced a reported number of about 45,000 forest fires this year, so far! You wonder why, and consider possible explanations, such as: not all of these fires can be the result of natural causes; why are the authorities not doing their utmost to mobilize international aid to put out these fires? What benefits could some evil minds be contemplating, for the day after this massive deforestation? Would it be plantations for human consumption? And construction works, in the name of development?

The Cyprus Strollers share a deep appreciation for the Cyprus forests. We understand that the health of our forests in Cyprus is very closely linked to the prosperity of the Amazon rain forests.

The issue is obviously extending beyond the personal; it affects each life on earth, and therefore becomes political. It is time to demand new actions. For in the words of poet John Donne (1624): “never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”.