Bringing people together to maintain dry stone terraces in Pitsilia Area.

More than 60 people participated in the 2nd Terrace Rehabilitation Workshop that was co-organized by The Cyprus Institute and Local Authorities from the Pitsilia area on Saturday, 10th of October 2015 in Alona. The workshop was part of the EU funded RECARE research project and its main objective was to maintain terraces that are in danger of collapsing.

Dry stone wall terraces are a long-held tradition of mountainous communities and play a vital role in mitigating soil erosion and therefore the preservation of the communities themselves. However, the indigenous terrace maintenance know-how is slowly disappearing due to the gradual abandonment of mountainous agriculture and the lack of awareness of the importance of these traditional infrastructures.

This practical workshop attracted the attention of people from all over Cyprus. Throughout the workshop, stone experts shared their terrace construction and maintenance knowledge, while participants helped the experts build the terrace walls.

Mr Andreas Dionysiou, Alona’s community leader, stressed the importance of dry-stone terraces in sustaining mountain rural communities in his opening address. A presentation on the environmental and cultural aspects of terraced walls and on good restoration practices was given by architect and environmental engineer Antonia Theodosiou, before the start of the practical work.

This series of participatory of workshops will be completed with a third event in Polystipos on 14 November 2015, in collaboration with Community Councils and other local institutions. Everybody is welcome to join us!

The RECARE project “Preventing and Remediating degradation of soils in Europe through Land Care” is financed through the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 603498. For more information, please contact The Cyprus Institute’s Christos Zoumides (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).