Greece's troubled economy pushes illegal logging across forests in the countryside
Date: 08-Feb-13
Country: GREECE
Author: Yorgos Karahalis
Photo: Yorgos Karahalis
Smoke rises from the chimney of a fireplace in the Glyfada suburb, south of Athens February 6, 2013.
With Greeks already struggling under wage and pension cuts imposed by the foreign lenders that bailed their country out, many have stopped using heating oil altogether, pushing consumption down 70 percent in the last three months of 2012 from a year earlier.
Instead, Greeks are turning burning firewood - using anything from branches to old furniture - which has helped create a blanket of smog over the Greek capital while illegal logging multiplies across forests in the countryside.
