Filenews 13 December 2025 - by Angelos Nikolaou
An alarm has been sounded in the environmental world after the issuance of an opinion by the Environmental Authority for the construction and operation of a 2 MW photovoltaic park in the community of Meladia in the province of Paphos. The environmental organizations Terra Cypria and BirdLife Cyprus in a joint, urgent letter, dated December 5, 2025, to the director of the Department of Environment and a number of other competent and co-competent authorities, request the immediate withdrawal of the opinion from the Environmental Authority, due to the serious gaps and errors identified and the rejection of the project by the Paphos District Local Government Organization.
The organisations regret the Department of Environment's insufficiently justified response to a previous request and raise four key issues regarding the Environmental Impact Assessment Study (EIA) and the opinion:
Incompatible terms: How are specific terms of the opinion expected to be incorporated into the approved spatial plan, when they are considered to be incompatible with it in substance, without affecting another term of the same opinion?
Fertile Agricultural Land: How was the Department of Agriculture's objection and condition regarding the portion of the plot comprising fertile/productive and arable agricultural land considered?
Water protection and opposite terms: Why was the term of the Water Development Department (WDD) for the use of aggregates in the park (to mitigate pollutant erosion) not incorporated and how does this fit in with a specific term of the Environmental Authority, which requires the soil to remain unsealed for rainwater absorption?
Natural vegetation/wildlife: How was the term of the Game and Fauna Service (MOA) to exclude and not affect the part of the plot with intense natural vegetation, shrubs/trees, and dry stone walls taken into account, and why is this term not mentioned in the Summary Note of the opinion?
The organizations ask for immediate information on their four questions, based on the provisions for access to environmental information (Archus Convention).
The organizations complain that the Environmental Authority ignores the fact that the zoning block falls within three examination areas on a case-by-case basis, according to Order 1/2024 (licensing framework for RES):
a) Flora: A significant number of trees (pines, almond trees, mosfilias, pernias, tereithias, carobs) and a significant area of the protected natural habitat type 5420 – Frygana in the Eastern Mediterranean were recorded in the field.
b) Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty: The project is located in an Urban Planning Zone of Agricultural Use C3 and an Urban Planning Regime of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, an element which is not examined in the opinion.
Agricultural land of high natural value: The Department of Agriculture characterizes the soil as fertile and agriculturally exploitable. The organizations point out that the area includes agricultural land of high natural value, with natural vegetation and linear elements of a rural landscape (dry stone walls, streams), but the effects on this land are not addressed in the opinion.
