At the Our Oceans Conference in Athens, Mitsotakis pledged €780 million to protect Greece’s marine ecosystems and said that state-of-the-art surveillance would be used to enforce the new measure.

Credits: Getty Images; Author: Chris Hepburn;

Although piecemeal restrictions exist throughout Europe, Greece is the first nation to pledge an outright ban on bottom trawling in MPAs.

The practice involves dragging heavy nets along the seabed. Besides ravaging habitats, it can release stored carbon into the atmosphere.