One of Greece’s major environmental challenges is the environmental integration of its economic and development policies, with the aim of reducing their ecological footprint. Through its environmental policy programme, WWF Greece pursues specific improvements in Greece’s environmental outlook and aims to encourage the adoption of a coherent and visionary national environmental policy.
The main problems underlying the present environmental milieu in Greece are:

• the lack of a coherent and legally binding national environmental policy, which results in the absence of clear reference points
• the fragmentation of the jurisdiction on environmental issues to many different ministries and local authorities
• the widespread public notion that “nature = land available for development”
• the absence of mechanisms for the effective control of environmental crime

Overall, through its work, WWF Greece pursues particularly ambitious goals and has so far been particularly successful in raising publicity on key policy issues, as well as raising environmental awareness among politicians.

The main areas of policy action for WWF Greece are the following:

1. Climate and energy
2. Nature and biodiversity (including forest policy)
3. Water resource policies
4. Fisheries
5. Spatial planning
6. Environmental governance
7. Environmental legislation observatory
8. Local sustainable development, primarily in areas where WWF Greece has established conservation presence

A key partner in WWF Greece’s environmental policy work is the organisation’s European Policy Office – WWF EPO. Based in Brussels, the WWF EPO serves as a leading policy think-tank and also as WWF’s “embassy” in the European Union’s capital.