Greece to Launch New Marine Parks at ‘Our Ocean’ Conference in Athens

Greece announced on Monday that it will launch two new marine parks in the Aegean and Ionian Seas to coincide with the Our Ocean Conference in Athens this week.

Delegates at the April 15-17 Our Ocean Conference include 12 heads of state, around 50 ministers and officials, and representatives from 120 nations and entities, including the U.N., EU and NATO.

“This is the biggest environment conference ever held (in Greece),” Environment and Energy Minister Theodoros Skylakakis told journalists.

Our Ocean Conference in Athens, Greece

The first Our Ocean Conference was launched by then-US Secretary of State John Kerry in 2014 and has since been hosted in all parts of the world, with the participation of governments, non-governmental organizations, civil society and those with a heightened environmental awareness, while the aim was to generate tangible results and actions that will improve the level of environmental protection.

The Our Ocean Conferences have extracted 2,161 specific commitments from states and international organizations, which have pledged both funding and regulatory action.

Our Ocean is the only conference to address all ocean-related issues under one roof. At the previous summit in Panama in March 2023, participants pledged $19 billion in initiatives to protect oceans.

They included projects involving sustainable fishing, the fight against pollution, maritime security and protected areas.

Greece’s marine parks

Skylakakis said that part of Greece’s commitments are two new national parks — one in the Ionian Sea for sea mammals and turtles, and another in the Aegean for seabirds, to be set into law by early next year.

“They will be among the largest in the Mediterranean,” he said.

In a statement on Monday, nine environmental groups including WWF and Greenpeace hailed the new parks announcement as an “important initiative.” However, they noted that the Ionian Sea Park is to be created in an area already earmarked by Greece for hydrocarbon exploration.

“There can be no protected maritime area with hydrocarbon extraction,” the groups said. Skylakakis said the park under consideration is “much, much larger than any extraction area.”

“Sea mammals will be afforded a very high level of protection,” he promised.

Greece has two existing marine parks:

The National Marine Park of Alonissos Northern Sporades which is the largest marine protected area in Europe, was established in 1992. It covers a vast sea area of approximately 2,260 square kilometers and includes the island of Alonnisos, six smaller islands, and 22 islets and rocky outcrops. The park protects a variety of marine life, including the endangered Mediterranean monk seal.

The National Marine Park of Zakynthos was established in 1999 and covers an area of 135 square kilometers in Laganas Bay, Zakynthos Island. The park’s primary purpose is to protect the loggerhead sea turtle, a critically endangered species.

Greece’s focus at the Our Ocean conference

Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis told reporters that Greece will be placing particular emphasis this year on sustainable tourism, microplastics, eco-friendly shipping and the Mediterranean environment.

“Each of us, especially those in coastal areas, swallows the equivalent of a plastic card each week (through microplastics in fish),” Gerapetritis said.

He noted that the Mediterranean Sea was a focal point of the oncoming environmental crisis, a planetary ‘hotspot’ that would see a significant increase in temperature and water levels:

“There are no margins for more compromises, we must seek the golden rule between sustainable growth, especially sustainable tourism growth, and the protection of the environment,” the minister said, stressing the obligation to deliver a livable world to future generations.