Greece with its rugged mountainous relief (42 summits over 2000m), its complex geology and the numerous islands and convoluted coastline (longer than the perimeter of France) presents a great diversity of natural scenery. In addition, the remoteness of some biotopes has led to the evolution of many endemic and rare animal and plant species. Equally interesting is the great variety of meteorological conditions that vary from dry semi-arid, semi-desert of SE Crete to the cold, humid continental climate of Rhodope mountain range bordering the Northern shores of the Aegean Sea.

The variety of the meteorological conditions combined with the geomorphological features reflects the rich flora and fauna. The diversity of the vegetation is evident by the large number of different habitats from the unique palm forest at Vai, on the eastern tip of Crete, to the boreal woods of birch, pines and spruce in Rhodope mountain range. This diversity is crowded into a very confined area; a journey of just 150 km from the town of Kavala to central Rhodope takes the traveller through Mediterranean, Central European and Northern (Scandinavian) vegetation zones.

Greece includes at its National List 241 Sites of Community Importance (SCI) according to the EU Directive 92/43 and has declared 202 Special Protected Areas (SPA) according to EU Directive 79/409. The boundaries of each site have been defined and displayed in maps on topographic background (scale 1:100000) and Standard Data Form has been completed with data on natural habitats and species of community importance.

Although it is quite hard to find updated description of individual sites from the network Natura 2000, at Mondoeco we try to enlarge the number of sites listed on or maps, whenever possible.