Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Tuesday (16 April) a ban on bottom trawling in the country’s marine protected areas (MPAs), the first such fishing ban in Europe.

At the ninth “Our Ocean” world conference held in Athens until 17 April Mitsotakis announced that Greece would be banning bottom trawling in the country’s marine protected areas (MPAs) by 2030.

Greece will start with national marine parks, where bottom fishing will be banned “by 2026”. Then, it will be prohibited “in all marine protected areas by 2030”, the prime minister.

This method of fishing, decried by environmental associations, involves dragging heavy nets along the seabed, damaging ecosystems and releasing carbon trapped in the seabed.

This announcement came on the day the Oceana association published a report showing that bottom fishing is still practised in 90% of European marine protected areas, despite the European Commission’s recommendation to the member states to phase out this practice by 2030.

Greece is the first country to pledge to this.

“We hope this creates a domino effect on other European countries to do the same,” Nicolas Fournier, Oceana’s European campaign manager for marine protection, said on X following Greece’s PM announcement.

To achieve the goal, Mitsotakis promised to deploy a state-of-the-art surveillance system, “powered by drones, satellites and artificial intelligence” to effectively patrol the protected areas by 2026.

In addition to this ban, two new national parks will be created, one in the Ionian Sea and one in the Aegean Sea, Increasing the size of the country’s marine protected areas by 80%.

Mitsotakis also committed to eliminating 50% of marine plastic waste by 2030 and promised that 21 actions will be implemented thanks to a budget of €780 million.

“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,” Mitsotakis said.

NGOs: EU countries still bottom fishing in protected areas despite recommendations

According to an EU action plan, member states were due to publish by 31 March a roadmap for achieving marine protected areas, including the phasing out of trawling fishing by 2030 but NGOs say the practice is still widely used, according to a report published on Tuesday (16 April).

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