- Culture Ministry lifts fishing bans inside Alonissos Marine Park.
- Trawlers entered protected waters in September.
- Environmental penalties were downgraded from criminal to fine-only offenses.
- Environment Ministry issues counter-ban — but fishermen ignore it.
- Sea Shepherd warns of catastrophic consequences for marine life.
When the Law Goes Fishing for Loopholes
In the Aegean, there is poetry in the waves — and bureaucracy waiting to kill it. The Culture Ministry’s decision to lift fishing restrictions in the Alonissos National Marine Park, a sanctuary meant to protect ancient ruins and living creatures alike, has effectively hung a “Welcome” sign for industrial trawlers.
Signed by Culture Minister Lina Mendoni in May, the ruling erased the ban beyond two nautical miles from the islands. On paper, it is about “access.” In practice, it’s about gutting protections with the kind of administrative creativity only a ministry could manage.
Why the sudden change? Archaeological restrictions carry criminal penalties, but environmental violations only draw fines. Translation: destroy the seabed, and you get a receipt instead of a conviction.
It did not take long for the predators to smell blood. Within days of the seasonal fishing ban ending, three trawlers rolled in, their steel nets slicing through waters once protected for the Mediterranean monk seal, coral forests, and ancient shipwrecks.
The Bureaucratic Tug-of-War
The Environment Ministry, apparently blindsided by its cultural counterpart, scrambled to issue a counter-decision through General Secretary Petros Varelidis. His ban on trawling across the park, citing environmental studies, reads like an apology letter to common sense.
But the fishermen — empowered by one ministry and unbothered by the other — shrugged it off. “Not legally binding,” they claim, until a presidential decree arrives. And so, the bureaucrats argue while the trawlers fish.
Meanwhile, Valia Stefanoudaki of Sea Shepherd sounded the alarm:
“The ministry’s decision opened the way for mechanical trawlers. This creates major problems for the National Marine Park.”
Translation: if policy remains this confused, there won’t be a park left to protect.
In a particularly Greek twist, while the ministries duel, the Council of State has upheld entrance fees for boats and visitors entering the park’s core zone. So yes — you can now pay to witness the destruction of one of the Aegean’s few truly protected ecosystems.
Tourists get receipts. Fishermen get loopholes. The sea gets plundered.
The Alonissos Marine Park is not a decoration. It is a living archive, holding both ancient shipwrecks and endangered life. Each careless policy rewrite does not just erase regulations — it erases futures.
But this is Greece’s most enduring tradition: when two ministries collide, the sea loses.