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.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
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.
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that’s not how you make olive oil
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/
What short sighted idiots. Chopping down a tree to steal the fruit? Our species is its own Great Filter.
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.
Sure. That’s poaching, overfishing, clearcutting, and every other natural resource that is exploited into oblivion or causes environmental destruction for a profit.
The way you phrase this like you found me to be arguing in favor of those things confuses me.
The very last line stuck out to me:
Markou, the grower, said of the tree-cutting. “You kill your own history here.”
Are the thieves to blame or the system in which they live in that’s full of social inequality? 🤔 Maybe it’s not the person with the chainsaw that’s killing their history.
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I really blew it, didn’t I?
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I mean, maybe you could have been a better role model when she was young, but also, she never really had a chance. This is what our celebrity culture does to people.
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So what you’re saying is: Everything is society’s fault, and we as individuals never need to take responsibility for anything?
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Uh, no. Not exactly. I was just saying that.
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Yeah. I like that. I didn’t do anything wrong because I can’t do anything wrong because we’re all just products of our environment, bouncing around like marbles in the game of Hungry Hungry Hippos that is our random and cruel universe.
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Wait, no, that’s not even what I’m saying …
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Yeah. It’s not my fault. It’s society. Everything is because of society. Hooray! Everything is meaningless! Nothing I do has consequence!
I think the people cutting down 150 year old tress are pretty clearly the ones to blame for cutting down 150 year old trees.
People may be driven to steal because of horrible circumstances… But they still choose what to steal.
If these guys were just knocking over a Target, I’d agree with you.
If you’re really interested in doing the research, there’s an entire black economy on bootleg olive oil and the mafia is a big part of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Italian organized crime is involved in this somehow.
Eh, just don’t go and make an organization dedicated to certifying olive oil… that’s actually effective. There have been several big stories about much of the oil you find in a store being either rancid or at best a mixture of olive oil and something else.
