After Greece announced it would create two marine parks in the Aegean Sea, Türkiye launched its own initiative to map similar parks in the region in a tit-for-tat move.
According to a Turkish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media, Türkiye’s Transportation and Infrastructure Ministry will plan to map out its own marine parks in the region.
Greece will create the parks by the end of this year, the country’s environment and energy minister said in April. This announcement was harshly criticized by neighbor Türkiye, which has accused Athens of exploiting environmental issues to push a geopolitical agenda.
The park in the Aegean will have a series of rocky islets at its core, covering more than 8,000 square kilometers (3,088 square miles) or just over 6.6% of Greece’s territorial waters. The second park in the Ionian Sea in western Greece will extend over 14,000 square kilometers (over 5,400 square miles) from the north of the island of Kefalonia to Antikythira in the south, covering 11% of Greek territorial waters. The parks will be monitored using drones, satellites and artificial intelligence after 2026. The area would be reserved for scientific research where ship traffic is controlled and there is no construction activity.
A Turkish diplomatic source said that Ankara was not priorly informed of the issue nor has it received any kind of consultation or offer for cooperation. The move is seen as a fait accompli.
The latest incident of marine park row displays another example of the two countries’ inability or unwillingness to cooperate on critical issues and threatens to disrupt the current positive atmosphere in bilateral ties. Türkiye and Greece already experience decades-old disputes on legitimate rights and interests in the Aegean Sea, including disagreements on the Aegean continental shelf territorial waters as well as conflicting claims over small islets and rocks. The creation of marine parks in such a contested territory will make matters worse if a formula for cooperation is not found.
Greece’s unilateral move without consulting Türkiye translates into territorialization through boundary-making and regulating the use of resources within this geographically defined area.
Marine parks, designated parks that set aside a certain area to achieve ecological sustainability and enable marine recreational activities, can constitute an area for cooperation or contestation and even regional conflict. The issue is sensitive in that international law does not provide clear guidance for transboundary marine conservation.
There are cases in which states have used marine parks to acquire rights over contested marine resources, restrict the freedom of others and establish sovereignty over maritime space.
However, successful examples also exist in terms of cooperation. One example is the cooperation between Malaysia and the Philippines in 1996 on the first marine transboundary protected area in Asia, namely the Turtle Island Heritage Protected Area in the Sulu Sea. Within this scope, a memorandum of agreements was made between the two governments.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), approximately one-third of all terrestrial high-biodiversity sites cross national land borders.
Therefore, cooperation is inevitable. A formula of shared governance for the conservation areas can be reached after a process of consultation and information exchange, after which joint committees for management and monitoring can be created. Legal means, such as drafting bilateral treaties or memorandums of understanding, can reinforce the process.
When Türkiye dubbed the move as a “fait accompli,” Greece retorted that Ankara was “politicizing a clearly environmental issue,” although the Turkish Foreign Ministry voiced that “Türkiye is always ready to cooperate with Greece in the Aegean Sea.” Instead of reciprocal accusations, the two countries need to find a recipe to overcome this latest challenge posed by unilateral declarations of marine parks. Athens needs to recognize Ankara’s offer of cooperation and halt the creation of the parks until coordination is reached at an official level between the relevant institutions. Marine parks and transboundary conservation efforts, in general, are an ideal way to preserve nature while nourishing cooperation among states and their people. Once again, dialogue is essential.
