Post-Crisis Environmental Policy in Greece: Discussing the Prospects of 4 Challenging Issues

This paper discusses 4 environmental related issues – forest maps (land cadastre), gold mining, lignite (coal) dependency and hydrocarbon exploration. Each one of them has its own unique configuration in elation to Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) requirements, environmental movement demands, climate change mitigation, EU environmental policy compliance and the perennial demand for attracting foreign investment and stimulating economic growth. All of these issues ae reoccurring discussion points I the political economy of environmental harms and social justice but in the case under examination, we examine these issues in the context of a government of a political party, Syriza, with close connections to the protest milieu that campaigned on these issues and members of its government adopted different positions based on heir adherence to old or new left issue allegiance. The paper closes with a cartographic exercise where all of these dynamic become evident and contemplates the development of related policies.