Speaking to Greek news agency ANA, the WWF’s director for the Mediterranean, Paolo Lombardi, warned of the environmental risks facing the Mediterranean.
"The Mediterranean is in a state of high risk…the region has turned into a hot spot of climate change," said Lombardi who noted that EU Mediterranean countries like Greece will be important players in the future.
Greece alone will experience more than 30 million tourists this year and over-tourism has already been a social and environmental issue in countries like Spain where locals protested the excesses of commercial tourism and tour operators.
Lombardi said that the European law is very strict and important steps are made by all the state-members. "The problem of law implementation is still very big," he said as many of the activities held in the Mediterranean as hydrocarbons research, tourist activities, aquaculture and navigation are new environmental challenges with most of them totally against the preservation of the environment and must stop immediately".
"The Mediterranean is changing, it gets warmer year after year and in parallel the sea level is rising. The governments, the enterprises and the society of the citizens are called to assume initiatives to reverse the negative climate," stated the WWF director.
Lombardi made a special reference to the Agenda 2030 and the targets for sustainable growth adopted by the UN according to which a serious framework is created in order the "economy growth to be combined with the environmental protection".
“There are still many to be done for the Mediterranean in order to deliver to our descendants a healthy environment and as a sea of prosperity", he concluded.
