Cyprus

The subject for my portrait for Cyprus is Sofia Matsi, seed and permaculture expert and the Executive Director of the Cyprus Environment Foundation

Geography

Cyprus is an island country located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, north of the Sinai Peninsula, south of the Anatolian Peninsula, and west of the Levant. It is geographically a part of West Asia, but its cultural ties and geopolitics are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the third-largest and third-most populous island in the Mediterranean. It is located east of Greece, north of Egypt, south of Turkey, and west of Lebanon and Syria.

Source Wikipedia

Environmental issues

There are many environmental challenges on Cyprus Climate change, natural resources exploitation, inefficient waste management, and unsustainable land clearance and agriculture are all factors contributing to the quick degeneration of the island’s biodiversity and ecosystems, leading to an urgent need for conservation and restoration action.

About Sofia

Sofia Matsi is the Executive Director of the Cyprus Environment Foundation.

Sofia has been involved in private and volunteering environmental projects for the past eight years, across the fields of heirloom seed saving and sharing, regenerative farming , natural building and resilient water catchment and management.

The Cyprus Environment Foundation - The CEF, was founded in 2021 to help the communities of Cyprus become leaders in the transition towards long term resilience, biodiversity conservation, land regeneration, and general sustainability. They believe that environmental sustainability need not come at the cost of economic development – but, to promote it.

Sofia’s mission is looking for the most resilient and adaptive agroecosystems for Cyprus and the semi-arid Mediterranean region.