Spread of desert "may cause Mediterranean exodus"

By Karolos Grohmann

ATHENS (Reuters) - Parched land could trigger a mass exodus north from the Mediterranean if the long-term effects of climate change, construction and farming are not checked, a Greek environmental official warned on Tuesday.

Swathes of Greece are also in immediate danger of becoming permanent desert, said Professor Costas Kosmas, head of a government committee set up to battle desertification.

"Desertification is a slow-moving process and once we realize it is happening it will be too late to go back," Kosmas told Reuters in an interview.

Desertification is being fueled by a reduction in average rainfall coupled with higher temperatures, deforestation and human activities such as farming, construction and tourism.

Kosmas said long-term environmental changes meant all countries across the Mediterranean basin would eventually be affected -- and that populations would drift to cooler north European latitudes.

"Desertification means that people cannot earn a living off the land so they move. They become migrants, flocking to urban areas," he said.

"Northern European countries have accepted this, though we (in the region) need to start taking specific measures immediately because we have done little until now."

Greece, which is the committee's main focus, has been experiencing one of its worst droughts in 20 years and its landscape will change substantially within the next decade, Kosmas said.