Having successfully transplanted an 800-year-old olive tree to the Sanctuary in Bogaz, it was no surprise that Kyrenia Municipality should come to ask us to move yet another giant.

The first tree, sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme (Action for Co-operation & Trust) took the best part of a full day to move. It was a frightening experience for all concerned, but one which had to be  undertake for the simple reason that not to do so, would have resulted in the tree being lost.

How can we be sure it would have been lost? Well rightly or wrongly, we do not chain ourselves to the trees to save them, we do so by moving them and so far we have transplanted hundreds of mature olive trees.

The second giant tree, we refer to here as "Horoz Ali", was another antique olive tree, estimated to be anything from 700 to 1,000 years old. It sat on the side of the road behind Kyrenia Police station, where a road was about to be widened. "Why not widen the other side of the road, so this tree doesn’t have to go?" was my first question. As always, the architects or engineers responsible for the plan were no where to be seen. Fine!!

"We’ll move it on one condition", I said. "We plant this one in a public place".

For taking Yusuf (Giant tree # 1) to our Sanctuary, was not without problems. Why did we take a piece of history and put it in our own land? Was it for its olives? Was it so that we would sell it to the highest bidder? No! The Sanctuary was the best place it could go for the simple reason that we could take care of it there. Who else would we have trusted to look after such a tree, with so much history and reputation at stake?

Kyrenia Council, said it could go into a little space in the Baris Park, in front of the Wednesday market, next to the fountain roundabout.

So, on Sunday morning, 2^nd July 2006, having prepared it in advance, "Horoz" took to the street. And aren’t drivers becoming very impatient these days? That’s another story.

Having acquired the know-how from the Yusuf tree move, made this move that much more easier to carry out and took just 5 hours to complete. We charged the Council 1,150 YTL, 15% of which was our fee, two-thirds of which we spent buying in extra water.

Compared to the fountain roundabout, which was financed by Turkey at a cost of 220,000 YTL, I think the Council and the people of Kyrenia got a very good deal. It is only now that the tree is growing, we feel able and justified to bring the story of this tree to the public’s attention.

What would have happened had this or the other big tree have died? Who would have got the blame? Not the Council for they called in the only olive tree moving specialists on the island and in that sense did the "right thing". It would have been us, The Olive Tree Project that would have been ridiculed and totally discredited. Had it died, we would have had to close our project and maybe start building new houses, like everybody else.

I’m not a man that likes to gamble, but we took a very big gamble that day, in full view of the whole community.

On one of my many recent site visits, I noticed two German tourists posing for a photo in front of the tree. I just had to start a conversation, as I usually do.

"This tree must be at least 1,000 years old", said the lady. "It could be" I replied. "I moved this myself". "No, that is not possible" she said.