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As price of olive oil soars, chainsaw-wielding thieves target Mediterranean’s century-old trees (apnews.com)

submitted 1 year ago by Salamendacious@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

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SPATA, Greece (AP) — In an olive grove on the outskirts of Athens, grower Konstantinos Markou pushes aside the shoots of new growth to reveal the stump of a tree — a roughly 150-year-old specimen, he said, that was among 15 cut down on his neighbor’s land by thieves eager to turn it into money.

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[-] JungleJim@sh.itjust.works 99 points 1 year ago

What short sighted idiots. Chopping down a tree to steal the fruit? Our species is its own Great Filter.

[-] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 63 points 1 year ago

The very last line stuck out to me:

Markou, the grower, said of the tree-cutting. “You kill your own history here.”

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[-] pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe 10 points 1 year ago

To be fair, olive trees only take 2-3 years to mature, so they're fairly easy to replace.

Just the fact that they'd do that is terrible, though.

[-] JungleJim@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 year ago

No, an olive tree may give you an olive at 3 years. One. A hundred year old olive tree gives thousands and thousands. It's really not replaceable.

[-] SARGEx117@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Use whatever wood bits that are left to fashion a few stakes and do what stakes do to the people who cut them down.

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Sure. That’s poaching, overfishing, clearcutting, and every other natural resource that is exploited into oblivion or causes environmental destruction for a profit.

[-] JungleJim@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

The way you phrase this like you found me to be arguing in favor of those things confuses me.

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I was agreeing with you and expounding on the problem.

[-] JungleJim@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

Gotcha. Have a good day.

[-] pan_troglodytes@programming.dev 43 points 1 year ago

that's not how you make olive oil

[-] ForestOrca@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

Right, that's how you steal lumber. Price of hardwood is high. I picked a randomly searched site, and see 1/2" X 8 1/8" X 39 3/4" for $81.16 https://www.bellforestproducts.com/olivewood/

[-] autotldr 7 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Warehouse break-ins, dilution of premium oil with inferior product, and falsification of shipping data are on the rise in olive-growing heartlands of Greece, Spain and Italy.

The crimes mean fewer olives for growers already contending with high production costs and climate change that has brought warmer winters, major flooding and more intense forest fires.

“The (robbers) look for heavily loaded branches and they cut them,” said Neilos Papachristou, who runs an olive mill and nearby grove in a fourth-generation family business.

That includes Christos Bekas, who was among the farmers at Papachristou’s mill who were dumping their crop into stainless steel loading bins, untying sacks and tipping over tall wicker baskets from the back of their pickup trucks.

The regional agricultural association issued a plea for police assistance following reports that 100 olive trees were destroyed or seriously damaged in a single incident last month.

The original article contains 728 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023

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