Biodiversity Conservation Versus Ecological Modernization in Post-crisis Greece: Environmental Syndemics and the Biodiversity Degradation Syndrome

This chapter introduces the concept of Environmental Syndemics as a conceptual reference tool to examine the effects of co-occurring, synergistic factors or stressors upon the status of biodiversity in Greece. After the multiple, sequential and/or overlapping crises of the last decades, Greece presents ambivalent trends in the state of the environment, nature, and biodiversity. De facto, macrostructure transitions are observable, such as urbanization, creation of high-risk urban/nature interfaces, depopulation and abandonment of rural areas, direct normative effects of its EU tenure, etc. Does the biodiversity degradation syndrome result from direct human pressure and environmental misgovernance? Or, does it consist of a hidden effect of an overall missed ecological modernization of the country? To make the part between these alternatives, a series of indicators corresponding to the IPBES Conceptual Framework are used with the intent to build a verisimilar explanatory story on the evolution of Greek forests. Although environmental and biodiversity conservation policies in Greece are poorly designed and implemented, if not inexistent, the interpretation proposed is that the lack of robust spatial and land-use planning is at the epicenter of the downward trajectory of biodiversity.