Your Excellencies, dear Colleagues,
It is a real pleasure to be able to join you for the 3rd UN Ocean Conference.
For my country, Greece, the sea is not just important, it is part of who we are. We are a maritime nation, with the largest merchant fleet in the world, thousands of islands and one of the world’s longest coastlines. Our connection to the sea shapes not just our economy and our way of life, but also our identity.
I want to warmly thank France and Costa Rica for organizing UNOC 3, and for focusing our attention on the urgent need to accelerate our joint action to protect our oceans. After all, the ancient God Oceanos was a symbol of a primordial world believed to be surrounded by water.
Today we know that water sustains all life and we recognize that the protection of our oceans is a global duty. After all, their health depends on shared stewardship. Because saving our seas is not just a task for one nation, it is a task of our generation.
This year we have a specific goal ahead of us, an important milestone: to ratify the BBNJ Agreement, so that it enters into force.
This Agreement is a historic step for conservation and biological diversity, and the international community needs to push forth its implementation as soon as possible.
I am honoured to announce that Greece is doing its part. We have ratified the BBNJ and will deposit our ratification instrument today. And, of course, we intend to do more.
I am happy to announce that Greece has taken a very important step in marine protection at the national level: before the end of this month we will start the legal process to create two new national marine parks, one in the Ionian Sea and another in the Southern Cyclades in the Aegean Sea, as a first phase with more to come.
With the new parks, we will exponentially increase our marine protected areas in our territorial waters: Once these parks will be finalized, we will significantly exceed the 30% threshold way before the 30×30 target of 2030. And, of course, we will ban bottom trawling in all our marine parks.
And, of course, we will not stop there: we are taking comprehensive measures to ensure that all our marine protected areas are effectively protected, that they are not just “paper parks”.
This means, state of the art monitoring surveillance and effective governance in collaboration with NGOs.
We are building upon the ambitious pledges made and the concrete actions committed at the 9th Our Ocean Conference, hosted proudly by Greece last year.
We are taking targeted measures for restoration, recovery and resilience of our marine species and biodiversity, with the aim to declare 10% of our territorial waters as no-take zones.
In this, we support initiatives of local fishing communities, such as the one in the island of Amorgos, “Amorgorama”, which establishes specific no fishing zones around the island as safe havens for marine life.
Let me say one word about decarbonizing shipping. We should accelerate but at the same time we should coordinate this energy transition. Decarbonization must be global or it will be ineffective. This is why Greece joined the ICS-led Clean Energy Marine Hubs Initiative, linking producers, ports, shipowners, financiers to scale alternative fuels. And this is why the IMO’s recent agreement on GHG emissions reduction, which is not without its’ challenges itself, must be respected by all countries, avoiding piecemeal regulation.
Greece is also a frontrunner in the promotion of maritime security. We recently highlighted its importance during our Presidency of the Security Council.
A secure maritime domain promotes global political stability, economic stability, security of supply, sustainable development and the well-being of all people. And we need to do more, as an international community, to bolster maritime security.
For the protection and the security of our oceans and seas, legal frameworks are indispensable. UNCLOS is the only international framework we have for the maritime domain and a solid basis for global governance at sea, whose enduring relevance is reaffirmed today, with BBNJ, in its third implementation Agreement.
Dear friends,
For Greece, for all peoples of the Mediterranean, our sea is our heritage. For millennia it has connected us, just as oceans connect continents. The protection of our seas and oceans must unite us now.
We must commit together to save them and our future.
Let us match words with actions and rise to the defining challenge of our time.
Thank you very much.
