Pine Tree forest

The green blends with the blue of the sea in the bay of Kapsali. This small pine forest softens the hard and rocky landscape, cooling the travellers and offering its scarce shade to the campers of the public camping of Kythera. In the past, however, this landscape was completely different since the forest did not exist. At the beginning of the 1960s, when it was planted, it covered the path of Agios Ioannis, the threshing floors and the fields of the monastery. According to reports, in this area there were also recreation areas during Venetian rule with buildings and gardens. Planting was a work of the era of the “development of Kythera”, as the locals say, when after a call from Meletios, the bishop of Kythera, a mission of the World Council of Churches arrived, led by Dutch engineer George Coxman and his wife Anna. The first of the ten points of the then great program of “total development” of the island was forestry, and so with the contribution of the forestry employee Ioannis Zerlentes, the crew, the residents, students and volunteers from abroad, among others, more than one million trees were planted in many parts of the island. The tree planting in Kapsali was done with pine (Pinus halepensis), which is not native in Kythera. It is a very widespread Mediterranean species, from which resin is collected, and produces medium quality wood. It is a beekeeping tree due to the honey produced by the insect Marcalina hellenica (vamvakada). The spread and the high density of the insect population, however, causes significant damage to the pines of the forest and lately there is research on how to limit it. Also, in recent years, a standard fire protection action of the area has been developed.