A drop in the ocean: Only 2% of EU seas protected as 2030 deadline looms, WWF warns

Posted on June, 03 2025

With just five years left to meet the EU’s 2030 target of protecting at least 30% of its marine areas – including 10% under strict protection – a new WWF report, Protecting and restoring our seas: Europe’s challenge to meet the 2030 targets, reveals that Member States are dangerously off track. Despite growing ecological and social urgency, only 2.04% of EU seas are currently covered by Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) with management plans.

Without clear objectives, conservation measures or restoration actions that are provided by these management plans, these sites remain protected in name only, while harmful activities often continue unchecked. The report comes on the eve of the European Commission’s launch of its long-awaited Ocean Pact, and just days before the UN Ocean Conference in Nice.

“This is far from what is needed to protect ocean health and the millions of people whose lives and livelihoods depend on it,” says Jacob Armstrong, Ocean Manager at WWF European Policy Office. “As so often with ocean policy, the framework is there but implementation is weak or missing altogether. Governments must walk the walk on marine protection or risk leaving these sites as little more than dots on a map.”

The analysis highlights two other major failings in current MPAs, in addition to the lack of management plans. First, there is a striking difference among Member States’ ambitions: only eight of them have formally submitted biodiversity pledges related to protected areas. Second, reporting across EU Member States is often inconsistent, delayed, and incomplete, resulting in a fragmented view of marine protection efforts. This finding raises serious concerns about how we can design and implement effective marine policies in the absence of reliable data.

The share of EU marine areas designated as marine protected areas (MPAs) with management plans in place varies widely between countries [1,2]. Belgium leads the ranking at 35.04%, while Greece, Croatia and Ireland – among others – report a striking 0%. However, it should be noted that this assessment does not reveal the efficacy of those management plans. In some cases, the plans may simply reflect “business as usual”, without any conservation efforts made since the designation. [3]

“The upcoming EU Ocean Pact must mark a watershed moment for ocean policy – where governments take concrete action to protect our ocean and the vital role it plays in our daily lives, from buffering the impacts of climate change to sustaining our food system. Ensuring that Marine Protected Areas are properly managed and enforced is the best way to make this happen,” says Armstrong.

In this context, WWF urges the European Commission and Member States to step up efforts to protect and restore marine biodiversity across all EU seas, and to ensure that all Marine Protected Areas: are strictly enforced; phase out harmful fishing practices that endanger sensitive species and habits; prioritise ecological coherence; are managed in a way that ensures coherence between ocean policies such as the Nature Restoration Law (NRL), Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and Marine Spatial Planning Directive (MSPD); and promote cooperation across national marine borders.

In addition to this new report, WWF is publishing a briefing paper on Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs) [4]. WWF stresses that governments should not give blanket recognition of OECMs and urges the Commission to adopt EU-wide guidance on implementing the existing Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) criteria for identifying, recognising and reporting OECMs in Europe. WWF also calls for the establishment of an EU-wide mechanism or platform to track and review national OECM pledges, ensuring the measures remain relevant and effective over time.

Notes to editor

[1] When looking at the management plan status by regional seas, the Baltic Sea has 10.36% of its waters covered by MPAs with management plans, while the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Northeast Atlantic have less than 6% of their waters covered by MPAs with management plans. The Baltic Sea region in this report differs from the EU biogeographical region and the HELCOM definition of the Baltic Sea, by also including portions of the Skagerrak that fall within the EEZs of EU Member States.

[2] All data from the study were extracted in August 2024, so current MPA coverage figures may differ.

[3] See for example: Piante, C., Canu, D. M., Giakoumi, S., Sala, E., Claudet, J., & Coll, M. (2023). Europe’s marine protected areas: more paper parks than real protection. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 11, 1253932. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1253932

[4] Unlike MPAs, OECMs are not designated but recognised. These are well-defined areas where governance and management measures in place (for example, fisheries restrictions) have achieved positive conservation outcomes over time.

Contact

Camille Gilissen
Ocean Communications Officer at WWF EU
cgilissen@wwf.eu
+32 473 56 37 75