Mediterranean: France will increase marine areas benefiting from “strong protection” to 5% by 2027, a – franceinfo

France will support the areas benefiting from “strong protection” to 5% of its maritime space in the Mediterranean by 2027, against 0.2% currently, announced Friday, September 3 Emmanuel Macron.

This extension of highly protected marine areas in the Mediterranean, eagerly awaited by environmental defenders, constitutes “a real change, which will allow us to reach another objective of 10% by 2030”, said the French president before the world congress of the International Union for the conservation of nature (IUCN), which opens this Friday in Marseille.

Earlier today, Emmanuel Macron announced the holding of a One Ocean environmental summit at the end of 2021 or early 2022 in France, after a sea trip off the creeks, on the third day of his visit to Marseille. This summit will serve, according to Emmanuel Macron, to “launching initiatives in the field of research, in matters of international jurisdiction and to supplement international law which will allow us to protect this space”.

Biodiversity is collapsing, with up to a million animal and plant species threatened with extinction, according to UN experts, who warned in 2019 that nature “is declining faster than ever in human history”.