The ministers of environment of France, Italy and Monaco signed an agreement on the creation of a sanctuary for the cetaceans in the Mediterranean Sea, in the basin between Liguria, Provence, Corsica and Tuscany.

This area who is about 100 000 square kilometres, that is to say 4% of the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, provides a habitat for a high concentration of cetacean (whales and dolphins), due to the specially good food-conditions. They have to be protected.

It is the first international agreement of this type. It is necessarily concerning the international waters and could help, for example, for the protection of the whole Mediterranean Sea.

Europe Conservation is very happy about this announced agreement, even if the signature of the European Committee (competence in fishing subjects) must be waited to come into effect. This international NGO, set up in 1989, has already several years the objective to establish this sanctuary.

‘We were the first to show the presence of a high concentration of marine mammals in the northern Mediterranean Sea, thanks to the scientific expeditions supported by several hundred volunteers”, declared Jean Philippe Beau Douëzy, founder of Europe Conservation France and today director of Ecoguide International.

With the signed agreement the activity of the associations is not stopping, on contrary. The sanctuary has to become a field-reality, thanks to the power of the public and the non governmental organisations which is very important.