After the 2023 wildfires on Rhodes, new habitat is being created around the Panagia Ypseni monastery

Between charred hillsides and new traces of green, the monastery of Panagia Ypseni stands as a place of preservation. What the fire took from this landscape is now slowly beginning to take root again around this special place.

After the wildfires, everything around the monastery walls was burnt – even the tree in the courtyard. The fact that this place remained makes it a quiet symbol of resilience and new beginnings. 

While the flames raged outside, a place of prayer remained within. The nuns of the monastery refused to leave, despite the fire at their doorstep. The candles inside Panagia Ypseni still speak of a trust and faith in God that proved stronger than fear.

Looking back has become the first step on the path ahead: up into a landscape that still carries the traces of the fire. In their hands, local people hold the simple things from which new life can grow: water, plants, tools and patience.

With Panagia Ypseni in view, memory turns into shared action. Every hand movement prepares the ground for what is meant to grow here again – carried by people who have not given up on this place.

Behind every new tree are organisations and people. They carry this project with their time, their work and their shared wish to help something grow and create lasting impact. The emerging TUI Forest is funded by the TUI Care Foundation – supported by TUI colleagues and donations from TUI guests.

The view across the hills shows the scale of the task: TUI Forest Rhodes is creating new habitat on a total of 80,000 square metres around Panagia Ypseni. In addition to olive trees, carob, cypress and cedar trees are also being planted – species that help make the landscape more resilient and give biodiversity new space to return.

Some centuries-old olive trees have endured in the landscape. They remind us how deeply life can be rooted – and what TUI Forest Rhodes is building on: nature that is not replaced, but carefully carried forward.

In the end, the story leads back to Panagia Ypseni – to the people who preserved this place and continue to fill it with life. TUI Forest Rhodes is growing around the monastery, but its meaning begins right here: in encounter, trust and the shared wish to give the landscape a future.