Greece plans to create two large marine parks and end bottom trawling, it announced Tuesday.
Greece plans to create two large marine parks and end bottom trawling, it announced Tuesday. It also aims to cut the volume of plastic waste flowing into Greek waters in half.
“The ocean has paid a heavy price for its service to humankind. It has been a vital source of life and livelihood. We have not been kind to it in return,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotaki said at an international conference on ocean health in Athens.
One new marine park will cover 3,000 square miles of the Aegean sea, while the other will cover more than 5,000 square miles of the Ionian Sea. Together, the two parks will span an area larger than New Jersey. In total, Greece plans to safeguard around a third of its waters, putting the country on track to do its part to meet an international goal of protecting 30 percent of land and sea.
Read more at: Yale Environment 360
The waters near Antikythera, Greece will be part of a new protected area. (Photo Credit: Nikos Patsiouris via Flickr)
