DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR BACKWARD ISLAND

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25444, 16 March 1948, Page 4

DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR BACKWARD ISLAND

CRETE

[By HOMER BXGART in the New York "Herald-Tribune"] (Published by Exclusive Arrangement)

Athens, February 24.—The Rockefeller Foundation will prepare blueprints for the conversion of Qrete into an j island paradise, a model self-support-ing area in this hungry, impoverished ! part of the world, it was learned tod<At the invitation of the Greek Government, a team of Rockefeller experts including a social scientist, a public health officer and a geologist, will arrive late next month to survey Crete for a long-range plan of economic development. The survey is expected to take nine months or a year. Then the development programme will be submitted to the Greek Government for the American aid mission. Funds for the survey will come from the Rockefeller Foundation, but presumably the cost of the development programme will be borne chiefly by Crete. ’ The project was proposed several months ago by Colonel Daniel E. Wright, of Winchester, Va., Rockefeller Foundation engineer on loan to the World Health Organisation of the United Nations. The foundation accepted the proposal last fall, but it was not until a week ago that the Greek Council Of Ministers (Cabinet) sent an official invitation.

Enthusiastic About Plan Interviewed to-day at the offices here of the World Health Organisation, where he heads the section on sanitation and malarial control, Colonel Wright spoke enthusiastically of the Cretan scheme. A five or 10-year plan of development, he said, would be formulated By the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation, in co-operation with the Athens School of Hygiene and the Greek Government. . , m This plan will be based on public health, economic and sociological considerations as developed during the impending survey of Crete. It would have a dual purpose; first, to develop a public health programme for the island; second, by correlating this programme with the long-range plan for economic development, to raise the standard of living to such an extent that public health work can be made self-supporting. Colonel Wright feels that the Crete plan, if successful, can become a model for similar projects on the Greek mainland or in other countries with low standards of living. Noting that Crete is reputed to have supported a population of more than 1,000.000 in ancient times, Colonel Wright said he believes the. island could maintain much more than its present 440,000 and that the urgency of its development is dictated by present eco-

nomic and political chaos on the mainland. He said that while for Greece as a whole only 18 per cent of the land is arable, the figures for Crete are much higher—2s to 35 per cent.— and that the island is relatively one of the richest parts of the country.

Agriculture Primitive Yet Crete to-day has primitive agriculture, in spite of fertility of the soil, and the production of wheat is far below the island’s requirements. Mountains once covered by forests are barren and slopes are desolate wastes. Most Cretans lack even the bare necessaries of life, and Athens has been unable to provide the islanders with anything but rudimentary education and health Services. As a first step in improving these services. Colonel Wright feels that the living standards must be jacked up. Before the war. Colonel Wright passed eight years in Greece as sanitary engineer for the Rockefeller Foundation. He made numerous trips to Crete, and became convinced that the island could easlv become a paradise of the eastern Mediterranean. He liked the Cretans and found them industrious and co-operative. He believes that the arable part of Crete can be considerably increased under a systematic programme of land reclamation. But there are also other possibilities. “Crete is probably rich in unexplored minerals,” he said. “Iron, lead, manganese, lignite, sulphur, copper, and zinc are known to exist. There is no manufacturing, and public works are practically non-existent." A Former Pesthole Until recently Crete was a pesthole. It was highly malarious until a few years ago, when Colonel Wright launched a control scheme. In spite of guerrilla activities, his malaria-control teams were able to cover 98 per cent of the island, spraying every building, stable, and pig pen. He found practically no modern sanitation. Typhoid is endemic and trachoma, sandfly fever, dysentery and diarrhoea are common. Colonel Wright was struck by the fact that Crete, an isolated island, would lend itself perfectly to a Rockefeller Foundation experiment. Already Cretans have submitted a pile of projects, and sifting these schemes will be one of the first tasks of the survey team. Colonel Wright has been with the Rockefeller Foundation since 1929, during which time the foundation has sent him to Burma, as consultant on health matters, to the Burma-Ching railway project. Celled into active service by the Army, he was later stationed in the Middle East. He re-turned-to Greece with the occupation ■forces in 1944.