The Greek government is ready, according to reports, to announce the creation of two new and large marine parks in the Ionian Sea and southern Aegean Sea, respectively, prior to this month’s landmark UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France (June 9-13), with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expected to unveil the development during the first day.
Reports in the Greek capital this week have relevant ministries concluding deliberations and resolving remaining technical issues, with the PM’s office subsequently providing the “green light” for publishing maps of the marine parks for public consultation ahead of his attendance at the Nice conference.
One last experts’ meeting is scheduled for Friday to resolve a handful of pending issues dealing with the particular characteristics of either planned marine park, an initiative announced in the spring of 2024 on the sidelines of a UN Ocean Conference in Athens.
The same reports point to a more mature study for the Ionian Sea, although the Greek government is favoring a simultaneous announcement, with whatever revisions, improvements and interventions “bumped” to the subsequent period when the two projects will be up for public consultation.
Sources that spoke to “Ta Nea” this week referred to a “highly complex” exercise to delimitate and declare such marine parks and the accompanying criteria for the “substantive management and control” of the areas.
One of the complexities of the south Aegean marine park was to fit all protected areas within Greek territorial waters.
The question of whether the sea region south of the central Aegean Island of Amorgos will be included in the specific park has also not been decided, according to reports, and will be determined in the future by another study.
In terms of the other proposed marine park, the one in the Ionian Sea, the issue of land use arose after coastal areas of west mainland Greece (the Gulf of Kyparissia, Mani peninsula etc.) were added as protected areas, along with the coastlines of major islands, such as Lefkada, Cephalonia and Kythira, where a variety of sea mammals and seabirds make their habitats.
An expansion of both parks is also likely, compared to the original plans, with the Ionian Sea park now reaching 20,000 square kilometers and the South Aegean park exceeding 8,000 square kilometers.
In terms of the dimensions of the two marine parks, the one in the Ionian resembles is a “continuum” in terms of marine protection areas, while the South Aegean is comprised of “fragmented” protection zones that include islets, rock outcrops, some inhabited islands (Folegandros, Anafi) and their surrounding maritime regions – to the extent of six nautical miles, the limit of Greek territorial waters at present.
Assuming that the tight timetables are met, thereby allowing Mitsotakis to unveil the two marine parks at the Nice Conference, then Greece will have fulfilled another commitment after the submission of its Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) to the EU Commission last month.
The issue of MSP and marine parks isn’t merely a technocratic and environmental exercise for Athens, as the country has faced fierce reactions in the past from an increasingly revisionist and belligerent Turkey, as far as maritime delimitation issues are concerned. Turkey is neither a signatory of UNCLOS, nor does it recognize the international convention in a de facto manner for settling air and sea boundaries in the Aegean and east Mediterranean.
As the Greek Foreign Ministry has pointed out with regard to the marine park in the south Aegean, Ankara is “politicizing a purely environmental issue”.
Regardless of the final dimensions that the two parks will have afterwards and the incorporation of observations resulting from the public consultation, it’s quite probable that Mitsotakis, in his next meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will have another two integrants embellishing Greek sovereignty in maritime regions.
