ATHENS – After his New Democracy government became the first to bar development on burned land in Greece, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that the island of Evia, the country’s second-largest that was half consumed by wildfires, will be reconstructed.

The northern part of the island that lies some 69 miles northeast of Athens is a preserve of forests and a producer of honey and other products, businesses nearly destroyed by the fires.

Mitsotakis said the plan to restore the island “will comprise a model for a new way to see holistic development” there after the government disputed critics who said the fires would lead to more wind power towers being put there.

Mitsotakis was speaking at the presentation of the third phase of the plan, during an event at the premier’s official residence where Stavros Benos, head of the reconstruction committee, presented outlines of 14 studies. The cost for the studies will be assumed entirely by the private sector and will be ready by September 2022, he said, the projects partially subsidized by the European Union.

They include plans for reforestation, infrastructure, cultural development, agricultural production, social networks, tourism and demographics and city plans for the municipalities of Istiaia-Edipsos and Mantoudi-Limni-Agia Anna.

The meeting was attended by ministers and local officials, representatives of hoteliers and business chambers, as well as of foundations and private businesses that will be involved in the funding of the studies, the paper said.