00:01In mid-February, a large cage from an abandoned fish farm surfaced in the waters of Ithaca.
00:07Drifting through the Ionian Sea, it polluted the surrounding waters of the Greek island and posed a risk to passing
00:12ships and boats.
00:13The Coast Guard eventually brought it a sore after which the Environmental Organization Health Seas took responsibility for removing it
00:20from the beach and recycling the materials.
00:22There is a system change needed. There are existing laws, but they are not applied or enforced properly in Greece.
00:31So first, the responsible owner of the fish farm, abandoned farms, should take care of removing them, cleaning them up,
00:39or if not, then the competent authorities.
00:42But it's a matter of capacity, money, skills.
00:49Abandoned fish farms have been a long-standing problem on the island.
00:52At some point, operators seized their activities, but failed to dismantle the installations or remove the nets from the seabed.
01:17Since 2021, Healthy Seas has cleared tons of discarded nets from the island's seabed.
01:22The team is made up of divers from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Greece, Lebanon and Hungary.
01:27Following its initial mission, the organization received dozens of reports about abandoned fishing gear from across Greece.
01:33If the issue is known, until today, no one has been punished.
01:39The Greek government is not able to deal with it.
01:42The Greek government is not able to deal with the problem.
01:43Therefore, the government is asking the help of environmental organizations.
01:48From the Ithaki, for the EuroNews, the A.P.O.S.T.A.E.K.
01:51The Euro
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