Filenews 14 February 2021 - by Dora Christodoulou
The only area in Cyprus where wild tulips grow, Polemi, celebrates every March with a Wild Tulip Festival. Last March, due to the virus, the festival was cancelled for the first time in many years, and now the second wave of the pandemic is pushing things towards the same negative decision this year.
This year's event, which would normally take place at the end of March, is now likely to be cancelled due to the epidemiological picture and even if any further easings are decided in March, it is now considered certain that they will not relate to mass population concentrations.
The festival was established with the flowering of tulips and is a pioneering event that gives important messages of public awareness for the conservation and protection of tulips and biodiversity in general. The human factor and the ways of certain agricultural and other spraying cleaning activities have a negative impact on the number of vegetation of tulip plants.
By promoting concrete actions, through measures to develop the organic production of agricultural products, as well as measures to undertake agri-environmental obligations in wine-growing vines, which are ways in which farmers replace the use of herbicides with soil cultivation and the mechanical control of weeds, the protection of tulips is greatly assisted.
The Paphos District Administration, according to the Prefect, Mary Lambrou, through the restoration of the adjacent Share which is declared as an Ancient Monument II Table and which will be used by a total of 12 communities of the region, will assist in the development, promotion and protection of the tulip by organizing cultural events and for issues of ecology, botany and for the unique characteristics of the local flora.
The next projects of the Paphos Provincial Administration, stressed the Prefect, include the creation of a biosphere in the area, which will be an artificial ecosystem for tulips and in which on-site training will be carried out in the cultivation of plants, as well as their distribution.
