600 football fields of precious green spaces lost each day in Europe

We in the West like to point fingers at deforestation and land-use change in the Global South, but the time has come to take a look at what is going on within our own borders.

News outlets in 11 countries and scientists from the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) did just that. They pored over five years’ worth of satellite images to determine Europe’s loss of green land. 

What they found was sobering. 

From 2018 to 2023, an area the size of Cyprus (9,000 km2) was lost to development.

That’s the equivalent of 600 football pitches… A DAY… being covered in bitumen, built on and bricked over.

This figure is 1.5 times higher than European Environment Agency (EEA) estimates whose methodology excludes areas below 5 hectares.

Small losses accumulate. And they count.

As usual, nature suffers first and foremost, with losses of some 900 km2/year, but we are also paving over around 600 km2 of farm land yearly, jeopardising our biodiversity, climate goals and food security.

Our continent is greying… in more ways than one. 

Of the 30 countries analysed, the top five offenders were Turkey (1,800 km2); Poland (over 1,000 km2); France (950 km2); Germany (720 km2) and the UK (604 km2).

New housing and roads account for a quarter of this loss, but “climate friendly” projects and luxury developments and golf courses are also taking their toll.

Four egregious examples (shown here impressively with other examples)

Germany—half a million trees felled to build Tesla’s gigafactory near Berlin.

Portugal—almost 300 hectares of a Natura2000 site supposedly protected under EU law turned into a luxury development, offering multi-million dollar homes for sale and a new golf course alleged to require 800,000 litres of water a day to keep green.

Turkey—a rich wetland, once home to flamingos, pelicans and migrating birds, and acting as a natural flood defence, encased in over 1 km2 of concrete to host a luxury marina and yacht repair/building yard.

Greece—a rugged wilderness classed as roadless under domestic law soon to be studded with a massive wind farm. 

And the excuses and greenwashing keep coming. These projects will help the environment as well as bring jobs, investments and an influx of wealthy visitors, proponents trumpet. Indeed, the Portuguese project has already attracted UK royalty eager to sample “the simple luxury of European living” on “the last untouched Atlantic coast in southern Europe.”

Not for much longer if the concreting continues.

In Europe, money talks, just like it does everywhere else. 

And nature pays the price as politicians continue to pontificate, pander to their bases and promote competitiveness. 

Photo: greentogrey.eu