Greece has grow to be the primary nation in Europe to announce a ban on backside trawling in all of its nationwide marine parks and guarded areas.
The nation stated will spend €780m (£666m) to guard its “various and distinctive marine ecosystems”.
The Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, instructed delegates on the Our Ocean convention in Athens on Tuesday: “We’ve established two further marine nationwide parks, one within the Ionian and one within the Aegean, rising the dimensions of our marine protected areas by 80% and protecting one third of our marine territorial waters.
“We’ll ban backside trawling in our nationwide parks by 2026 and in all marine protected areas by 2030.”
He stated he would additionally set up a state-of-the-art surveillance system, together with drones, to implement the ban.
The proposed Ionian marine nationwide park will cowl nearly 12% of Greek territorial waters, safeguarding sea mammals like sperm whales, striped dolphins and the susceptible Mediterranean monk seal and the South Aegean MPA, which covers 6.61% of Greek territorial waters.
Nonetheless, the Athens authorities’s determination to go forward with two new marine parks within the Aegean and Ionian has stirred up tensions with its historic rival Turkey. Ankara’s international ministry warned Greece final week that the proposal within the Aegean lay in a disputed space and that the initiative was “politically motivated”.
Conservationists welcomed the announcement and stated they hoped the transfer would create a “domino impact” for different EU international locations to do the identical.
Nicholas Fournier, the marketing campaign director for marine safety on the worldwide conservation group Oceana, stated: “Everybody was anticipating France or Germany or Spain to step up. The truth that Greece is championing this ban on backside trawling is stunning however very welcome.
“We hope this creates a domino impact on different European international locations to do the identical. The stress is on France, because it hosts the UN oceans convention subsequent 12 months.”
The information got here as France was accused of hypocrisy by conservationists over a post-Brexit dispute with the UK over fishing rights. The nation launched an official protest after the UK moved to ban backside trawling from components of its territorial waters to guard susceptible marine habitats.
Charles Clover, the co-founder of Blue Marine Basis, a UK-based conservation organisation, stated: “The grownups of Europe actually do have to type out the extraordinary chaos between its member states over marine safety. France claims to have already protected 30% of its waters – whereas their very own conservationists inform us lower than 0.1% of its waters are successfully shielded from trawling.
“On high of that, France desires to stop Britain banning trawling in marine protected areas within the UK’s personal waters – which is utter hypocrisy, opposite to habitats legal guidelines that apply to each of us and unacceptable to the UK. Right now we’ve got Greece main Europe by saying that it’s going to really shield all of its MPAs from trawling by 2030, which quantities to an enormous 32% of its waters. Has the EU no frequent requirements?”
Backside trawling by industrial vessels is a massively damaging fishing method that drags heavy nets throughout the seabed, destroying habitats and releasing carbon into the ocean and the environment.
Oceana – together with different NGOs, the Marine Conservation Society and Seas at Danger – has urged the EU to take more durable motion towards members that also enable backside trawling of their marine protected areas. A report in March confirmed that the harmful apply remains to be taking place in 90% of all offshore MPAs within the EU.
In the mean time, simply 7-8% of the ocean is protected, and solely 3% falls underneath the “extremely protected” class.
