Dia (island)

Dia (Greek Δία also Ντία ( f sg ) ) is an uninhabited Greek island north of Crete. It belongs to the municipality of Gouves the municipality Hersonissos.

Location

The island of Dia is in the Cretan Sea ( Κρητικό Πέλαγος ), north of the Gulf of Heraklion ( Κόλπος του Ηρακλείου ), about 12 km from Heraklion, the largest city of Crete. The average length in the east-west direction is about 5 km in north-south direction is about 3 km. With an area of ​​approximately 11.9 km ² Slide to Gavdos is the second largest of about 90 islands located near Crete and smallest islets. The highest elevation Mavromouri ( Μαυρομούρι ) of moderately mountainous island reaches a height of 268 m. On the north - east coast and there are cliffs. The line of the south coast is of four bays interspersed Agios Georgios in the West, then capari, Panagia and finally Agrilia in the east. The small rocky island Glaronisi (also Petalida ) is located about 1.5 km west and 3.1 km Paximadi east of the main island.

History

Due to not yet having been archaeological explorations no statements about the first settlement can be made. However, Dia played since ancient times as a point of an important role for navigation in the Cretan Sea, particularly from the Minoan period to the Middle Ages. The early navigators offered the four bays on the south side of good anchorages and protection from the prevailing winds from the north. In the ancient literature, the island is mentioned several times.

In Agios Georgios bay in the southwest discovered in the mid -1970s, the French oceanographer Jacques -Yves Cousteau a Minoan harbor settlement.

A naval port and a wreck from the Byzantine period could be detected under the direction of Unterwasserarchäologin Elpida Hadjidaki marten. Presumably, the port served Nikephoros II Phokas the Byzantine emperor 960 AD as the basis of the reconquest Candias by the Saracens, who had conquered Crete from 826.

During the Venetian period, the island was known under the name Standia, the sheltered bays in the east were (now Heraklion), used until the 19th century as a trading port, instead of to small and shallow harbor of Candia for large commercial vessels. To avert the conquest of the city of Heraklion by the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century, it served the Venetian Republic under the leadership of Francesco Morosini and its allies as a base.

The island is since 1938 under the administration of the Greek Forest Service. She has built an ever farmed administration building in the western part of the island as well as several bungalows. A dirt road leads from the city, in the west bay of Agios Georgios in the north of the island and ends at the bay Agrilia in the east.

Today boat trips in Agios Georgios Bay, where there is also a tavern, as well as diving trips are offered in the Agrilia Bay of Heraklion in high season.

Nature

The island consists of limestone of Tripolitza series. The image of the vegetation of the island is dominated by the proximity of the city of Heraklion, the centuries- long intensive use of the island and the exposure of wild rabbits as game and wild goats reasons of nature protection. The landscape of the island is dominated by the small island location and rabbit grazing in the species composition of certain species-poor Phrygana whose dominant type is the thorny burnet ( Sarcopoterium spinosum ). In the western parts of the island loosely related, low mastic come ( Pistacia lentiscus ) to form a somewhat more advanced stage of succession. Manifold are the small opening into the south coast bays gorges on whose valley floor a species- richer Phrygana with Thymbra mountain mint ( Satureja thymbra ) and the Greek spirit Dost settled. The surrounding steep slopes and rock walls support an endemitenreiche rock vegetation. Some limited by stone walls, field plots are still in operation.

Flora

So far, 166 ferns and seed plants species were found on slide and the neighboring small islands. According to current knowledge, there is on the island endemic species, the one with the autumn squill related but much larger and polyploid Prospero talosii. Carlina DIAE has been described by Dia, but was subsequently found on the Dionysaden and the Cretan mainland. As more widespread in the Aegean islands, on the Cretan mainland but missing small island specialists come Atriplex recurva, Lavatera arborea before (only on Glaronisi ), Muscari dionysicum and Trigonella rechingeri to slide. A larger number of Cretan endemics has reached the island, under which the rock dwellers Asperula tournefortii, Petromarula pinnata, Staehelina petiolata and Verbascum arcturus and the one-year, rare on the mainland Phrygana - resident Campanula creutzburgii are noteworthy. Other notable species are rare in Crete and surrounding islands Bellium minutum, which, after the opening of the Suez Canal from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean immigrant and found off the coasts of the island sea water plant Halophila stipulacea and to slide their regional occurrence focus owning ononis mitissima.

Fauna

In order to secure the survival of the critically endangered on the mainland Cretan Cretan wild goats, 1958 animals were exposed on the island. The animals caused massive damage to the island's flora, especially on Carlina DIAE, why was required early on to remove the goats back from the island. From the Forest Service, a fence was pulled across the island, which locks out the animals from the western third of the island and just one port on the island road is passable. Meanwhile, it has been found that among these animals cross breeding with domestic goats are. Therefore, the forest department has decided to take all the goats from the island. Despite the unresolved conflicts protection is intended, according to a regeneration phase for the vegetation to resettle purebred Cretan wild goats.

Already Sieber, who visited the island of Dia to January 9, in 1817 by 7, tells of the wild rabbit island that populate these in large numbers. It can be assumed that the animals were exposed or earlier in the 18th century as a hunting game on slide. The rabbits of the island of Dia was constructed in 1905 as a separate, endemic subspecies (Oryctolagus cuniculus cnossius ) described. The taxonomic status of this subspecies is, however, doubted.

In addition, there slide on a population of the Cretan Wall Lizard ( Podarcis cretensis ). The species is on the national Red List as Vulnerable (VU - Vulnerable ) - classified and at the International as endangered ( EN Endangered ).

The Greek bird protection organization ( Ελληνική Ορνιθολογική Εταιρεία ), a partner of BirdLife International, one slide to the ten most important bird sanctuaries of Greece, as Eleonora's falcon visit the island every year as a breeding area. The Endangered (CR - Critically Endangered ) endangered Mediterranean monk seal has its habitat in the waters around the island.

Conservation

Dia was the Natura 2000 network of the European Union as GR 4310003 Dia Iceland ( Νήσος Δία ) integrated and parts of it at the same time as an IBA ( " Important Bird Area " ) zone GR 189 Dia Iceland ( Νήσος Δία ) classified.

Map

Crete / Κρήτη, Eastern Part 2, Touring Map, 1:100,000 (Map). Harms ic Publishing, 1997, ISBN 3-927468-17-7.